Mia the Magnificent (6 page)

Then, without looking back, he lurched off down the sidewalk.

I stared at my open geometry book, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was too wired, having spent the past few hours explaining, first to the A-OK Driving School and then to my parents, how we’d lost our driving teacher in the middle of a lesson.

I eyed the basketball sitting in the corner of my bedroom. What I needed was a good sweat. Maybe then I could clear my brain enough to focus on homework. Besides, it was Friday night, and I had all weekend to figure out what in the world a rhombus was.

Scooping up the basketball, I headed to the court in my backyard and saw that Chris, Tim, and his younger brother Kevin were already using it in a game of two-on-one.

I bounced the ball on the side of the court. “You guys about finished?”

“We just started.” Kevin shot a lay-up. “Why don’t you join us?”

“You just want Mia to play because you’re afraid I’m going to beat you two chumps single-handedly,” Tim said, blocking Kevin’s shot.

“Are you kidding me?” Chris rebounded the ball. “Mia couldn’t dunk a cookie into a glass of milk.”

“If I ever need a brain for a transplant, remind me to ask for yours,” I said, turning to go back into the house, “because I’d like one that hasn’t been used.”

“Come on, Mia,” Kevin called. “You and me against Tim and Chris, just like the old days.”

I kept walking. “No thanks.”

“What are you, chicken?” said Tim.

I turned around. “Did you just call me chicken?”

Tim smiled. “If the feathers fit...”

“That’s it.” I dropped my basketball and ran onto the court. “You’re on!”

I pounded fists with Kevin and then pointed at Tim and Chris. “You guys are dead meat.”

“The only thing that’s dead around here,” said Tim, “is your hope of beating us in basketball.”

“Just keep talking.” I checked the ball and threw it to Kevin, who made an easy lay-up. “We’ll see who has bragging rights at the end of this game.”

“Same rules as always. Play to ten and win by two,” Tim said as he rebounded the ball. “But let’s make it for more than bragging rights.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What did you have in mind?”

“How about this? Losers chauffeur winners wherever they want to go on the first day we get our licenses.”

“Then I guess Kevin and I better start figuring out where we want to go,” I said, reaching in to steal the ball from Tim.

“In your dreams.” Tim head-faked me to the left, cross-dribbled right, slipped past me, and scored. “More like you’ll be driving me and Chris to the
Three Stooges
Festival and then out for some greasy tacos with lots of jalapeños. If I remember correctly, you hate spicy foods!”

“Not as much as I hate pompous jerks,” I said as Kevin passed the ball to me and I made a long outside shot.

“Yes!” Kevin yelled, giving me a high-five. “That was awesome!”

Taking full advantage of our mini-celebration, Tim quickly took the ball out and passed it to Chris for an easy lay-up.

“Swoosh! Nothing but net!” Tim yelled as he bumped chests with Chris.

“No fair!” I yelled. “We weren’t ready.”

“Well, you better get ready—to lose!” Tim called, running to the back of the court.

From that point on, I made sure there was no more talking. I was hell-bent on not losing the game, or the bet. Kevin stepped up his game as well, and we were a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, so were Chris and Tim. After going point for point for 45 minutes, Tim and Chris were up by one and had the ball.

Chris passed the ball to Tim, who faked left, but I was ready for him. I covered him to the right and blocked his shot. The ball bounced off the backboard and he rebounded it. Stepping back, he knocked me to the ground, and then, taking advantage of the open shot, swished the ball into the basket.

“Yes!” Chris yelled as he ran over and high-fived Tim.

I leaned over my knees, unable to watch them relish my defeat.

“Nice try,” Kevin said as he walked over to help me up. “We’ll get them next game.”

“You guys are already up for more humiliation?” Tim said, dribbling the ball in front of me. “Then let’s up the ante. How about losers chauffeur winners around for a month?”

“Count me out,” Chris said, “I promised Gina I’d call her tonight, and if I call too late, she might get mad.”

Tim grabbed Chris’s arm. “Haven’t I taught you anything? You don’t call a girl when she wants—you make her wait. Then, when she’s feeling all insecure and wondering what she did wrong, you give her a call. She’ll be so grateful, she’ll be putty in your hands.”

“You’ve got putty for a brain,” I said, removing Tim’s hand from Chris’s arm. “Chris, if you tell someone you’ll call them at a certain time, then you call them. It’s the only polite thing to do.”

“Polite?” Tim scoffed. “He wants to date a girl, not be crowned Mr. Manners.” He grabbed Chris’s arm again. “I promise you, if you don’t call her tonight, she might be mad for a day or two, but in the long run, she’ll like you even more.”

“Or she’ll use her common sense and realize she shouldn’t waste
her time on some guy who’s too busy to call or e-mail her when he says he will!” I retorted, pushing Tim’s hand off of Chris.

“Oh, I get it now,” Tim said, taking hold of Chris’s arm once more. “This isn’t at all about Chris and Gina, is it? This is about me not e-mailing you last summer when I said I would.”

“No, it’s not. Of course, your egotistical mind probably has difficulty with the concept that not everything is about you,” I fumed, clutching onto Chris’s other arm. “This is about my brother learning how to treat people with respect. And you are obviously not the person who should be teaching him anything on that subject. You don’t even know what that word means.”

“Forget I even said anything!” Chris exclaimed, shaking both of his arms free. “And just to shut you guys up, I’ll compromise with you. How about I play another game of basketball now and call Gina later?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You should call her now.”

“And I think you should call her in a few days,” Tim said.

“You know what I think?” Kevin asked. “I think you both—”

“Tim,” Mrs. Radford called from their house, “some girl named Alyssa is on the phone. She says she’s returning your call. Do you want me to take a message?”

“No,” Tim shouted back. “I’ll take it. I’ll be there in a second.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “What about making a girl wait to take your call?”

Tim handed the basketball to me and grinned. “You have to shake things up a bit to keep girls guessing what’s going to happen next. Sometimes I take their calls, sometimes I make them wait. I’m a man of mystery. It’s why you like me so much.”

“The only mystery is that I ever liked you at all,” I replied, “And not that I care, but does Cassie know about you and Alyssa?”

“I told you, Cassie and I aren’t serious and Alyssa and I are just friends,” Tim said as he jogged toward his house. “But just to be safe—because you know how Cassie can be—I’d appreciate it if you
kept this Alyssa thing to yourself for now.”

As he disappeared through the back door of his house, Chris whistled in admiration. “Man, does that guy know how to get chicks, or what?”

I shook my head. Chris was right: Tim definitely knew how to get girls. It was just too bad he didn’t know how to treat them once he got them.

The following Monday, Zoë pulled the sides of her black sweatshirt closer together and asked, “Where’s our new driving teacher? It’s freakin’ freezing out here.”

“I don’t know,” I replied, hunching my shoulders up to my ears to shield them from the harsh fall wind that had blown into Iowa over the weekend. “I still can’t believe Mr. Bodey quit teaching entirely. What’s he going to do for money?”

“Mr. Bodey’s used to driving around in yellow cars. Maybe he can be a delivery guy for Cluck a Buck,” Tim replied.

Jake smacked his lips. “Their chicken’s off the hizzle fo’ shizzle.”

Zoë flicked Jake on the side of the head. “Try and stick to the subject.”

“What?” Jake said, rubbing his head. “I thought we was talkin’ ’bout chicken.”

“I just hope whoever they hired is better than Mr. Bodey,” Zoë said. “He was kind of tense.”

I stomped my feet on the ground to get my circulation going. “Yeah, let’s hope our next teacher is more fun.”

“Well, butter my behind and call me a biscuit. Lookee who’s here!”

The sudden chill that crept up my spine had nothing to do with the weather. As I stared at the older man in the Wrangler jeans, striding toward us in his cowboy boots, I stammered, “Mr. Corrigan! W-w-what are you doing here?”

“Don’t ya know?” said Mr. Corrigan, hitching up his jeans. “Besides bein’ a maintenance man—which is just an uppity way of sayin’ janitor at St. Hilary’s—I’m also a gen-u-ine driver’s ed teacher.
The driving school called me on account of Mr. Bodey’s high-tailing it out of here quicker than a fox chased by a pack of hound dogs.”

Zoë looked over her shoulder. “Is this guy for real or am I being punked?”

“Oh, no,” I mumbled. “He’s for real.”

Mr. Corrigan was the head custodian at St. Hilary’s and also a part-time DJ. Last year, I’d made the mistake of hiring him to emcee our dance, not realizing that his repertoire consisted entirely of fiddle music and square dance calls. Needless to say, it was a dance that will be remembered at every class reunion until the end of time.

“Well, I’ll be a gnat’s whisker,” Mr. Corrigan said, peering at Zoë like she was a specimen on display. “You’ve got more holes in you than a piece of Swiss cheese.”

“Hey,” Jake said, squinting, “don’t I know you from somewhere, dude?”

“Why, sure ya do. I see ya every day when I’m sweeping the floors at St. Hilary’s. And I’m also the feller that played that sweet ol’ love song for you and little Mia Fullerton last fall.” Mr. Corrigan winked at me. “I take it you two are still hotter than a goat’s behind in a pepper patch.”

“Uh, actually,” I muttered, “Jake and I broke up.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Corrigan scratched his chin and looked at Tim. “Well, if I recollect rightly, I think this here feller was also buzzing around you like a fly on a watermelon that night. I bet my bottom dollar you two are stepping out now.”

I shifted my feet uncomfortably. “Um, I used to date Tim, but we broke up, too.”

“Lordee, I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one of your old beaus, can I?” Mr. Corrigan grinned at me.

“Uh, do you think we could get on with our driving lesson?” I asked, my face turning as red as a baby’s bottom on the first day at the pool.

Later that night, Lisa and I cleaned up the auditorium after rehearsal. “So,” she asked, “how do you think it went?”

“Um, most of it went OK,” I said. “But I think you might’ve gone a little bit overboard when you made Mandy repeat her line so many times. I mean, saying ‘Egads’ isn’t that hard.”

“It’s not my fault she couldn’t get it right.” Lisa snatched a piece of paper off the floor and shoved it in the garbage can. “And anyway, practice makes perfect.”

“Then,” I said a little more delicately, “how about making her stand next to Shawn Prescott during every scene? You know, the kid who thinks deodorant is something made for other people?”