My Year of Epic Rock (4 page)

I waved good-bye to Tiernan and got up, walking out the door just at the same moment as Brianna and Shelley.

“Good job,” Shelley said to me, like she meant it. I was glad I only took a tiny bit of pleasure in her earlier mistake.

“Thanks. You guys did well too,” I said, then said to Brianna, “Um, see you at lunch?”

“Oh, sure,” Brianna replied, and then turned around to give Shelley a huge hug good-bye. No hug for me. It kind of took the thrill out of my big Supreme Court win.

I took a deep breath and thought about my dad's favorite joke anytime Jackson or I act like sore losers when we play a game. Dad yells, “There's no crying in baseball!” It's from a movie. Sometimes it works and we stop our complaining. One time I threw a Monopoly board at Jackson's head. There was a lot of crying that night. Thinking about Dad making his dumb joke always stops me from getting more upset. At least I could proceed down the hallway without looking all blotchy and watery-eyed.

At lunchtime, I decided I'd wait a bit longer to enter the cafeteria so I could be sure Shelley and Brianna were sitting down and I wouldn't be stuck there all by myself. By the time I strolled in, all casual-like, they were at a table together, of course, and laughing like always.

“Hi, guys,” I said, putting down my bag and trying my best to sound friendly, not sulky. I didn't entirely pull it off.

“Tiernan sure got into the assignment today, didn't he?” Brianna said, looking at me and then back to Shelley. I wasn't sure what she meant, but she wasn't trying to be nice, that was for sure.

“Yeah, he's really smart,” I replied. “I
wish
I was that smart.”

“It makes up for his fashion sense,” Brianna said.

“That's harsh,” said Shelley and giggled. Unbelievable. A joke about his wardrobe. How original.

“Whatever,” Shelley said. “I'm focused on our party anyway.”

“Oh, yeah, your party, right. You guys are on it,” I said.

Our
party
.
Ouch.

Brianna looked happy—like she'd accomplished something major. Since when was hosting a party a reason to be that proud? Buy chips, soda, and play music. Big freakin' deal! Try winning a case in front of the Supreme Court and then talk to me.

“I think we should ask Josh to come over early, to help us set up,” Brianna said. “And maybe Ethan too, right?”

Josh Ricci is this teeny tiny guy in our grade with almost-white blond hair, and he's always tagging along after whomever he thinks is popular while making mean comments about everyone else.

Last year he got into some argument with Destiny Torres, and he pulled on her puffy coat so hard the sleeve ripped. And when we learned about Lake Titicaca in fifth grade, he didn't stop laughing for, like, the rest of the year.

Josh has always left me alone, but only because he hasn't come up with a good way to rhyme my name with a gross body part. Total jerk. I didn't think Ethan was really tight friends with him—Ethan usually hung out with more normal kids, like the ones on his soccer team, but maybe I was wrong, like I seemed to be about everything else lately.

“Totally. Let's have them come over
extra
early,” Shelley drew out the word “extra” so it sounded like she was saying something she wasn't supposed to, then laughed like she'd made a super clever joke.

Hilarious.

Shelley opened up a tiny little Velcro sandwich bag with red swirls on the front and took out a dainty, perfectly unsmushed sandwich. How was that even possible? My sandwiches always looked like they'd taken a cross-country ride on the back of a donkey by the time lunch rolled around.

She gave her food a dirty look. “I hate bringing my lunch to school, but my mom only had big bills and didn't want me taking a hundred dollars out of her wallet,” she said. Then Shelley noticed my brown bag and added, “Sorry, Nina, I didn't mean that there's anything wrong with bringing your own food, if you're into it.”

“That's okay.” I didn't want her to see that I felt bad, although I couldn't seem to stop frowning. I felt like my lips were tugging down my entire face, all droopy basset hound style. Maybe that theory about how humans start to resemble their pets was really true.

I forced myself to smile. A big, fake one.

“Besides, who cares about lunch? It's the stupidest meal of the day anyway,” I added.

No one said anything back.

Shelley took a bite from her sandwich. I noticed that it was peanut butter and jelly right away just from the smell.

My stomach clenched a little.

I realize that sitting near peanut butter is not a big deal. My mom and dad have told me that a billion times, although they follow that up with “So long as you don't eat it. Or touch it. Or look it directly in its eye.” Ha ha. But it's weird when the person next to you is eating your own personal poison.

My cool uncle Mike who's a yoga teacher insists that I'm lucky that I have food allergies, because “at least you know what your Kryptonite is.” I didn't feel very lucky at that moment.

I looked around the lunchroom. There was plenty of yelling and laughing and chewing and talking. Everyone seemed to be sitting where they were meant to be. Except me. I felt out of place.

I
was
out
of
place.

Shelley took another nibble from her sandwich. A dot of peanut butter covered the navy polish on one of her fingertips.

Was I getting a hive? I felt itchy all of a sudden.
Was
I
having
an
allergic
reaction?

I took a breath. I tried to remind myself that there wasn't any possible way I could have eaten anything I was allergic to, since I hadn't even put a finger near my lips, let alone taken a bite of food, but my body didn't believe me.

“I forgot to get my pen back from Tiernan from earlier. I'll see you later,” I said, standing up. Brianna turned back to Shelley without a word, but that was okay, because I was freaking out and hoping my face wasn't puffing up and if it was, that neither of them noticed.

Brianna and I used to play the “Which is worse?” game a lot, like, “Which is worse: peeing your pants at school or being bitten by a hundred fire ants?” I couldn't decide which was worse—having an allergic reaction, or having a total panic freak out and looking crazy in front of the two people you most wanted to look cool around.

I could see Tiernan sitting over at the peanut-free table with some other kids. I wasn't even sure why I'd come up with him as my excuse. It was just his name was the first one that popped in to my mind. Maybe because I'd been with him all morning. Or maybe because I'd never seen him be anything but nice—ever—and I desperately yearned to be near a friendly face.

I hustled over, sitting down quietly at the very end of the bench, right next to Tiernan, without saying anything. I heard insanely loud laughter from Brianna and Shelley.

“Uh, yeah, I can pretty much guarantee that whatever they're talking about is not that funny,” Tiernan said, looking at me and shaking his head.

I was so grateful I had to stop myself from hugging him. My breathing felt fine again. Go figure.

Tiernan was sitting next to Madison Sullivan, who honestly used to cry every time someone even ate a peanut within twenty feet of her until, like, last year. And Pouty Heidi was there with them too, even though I didn't think she had allergies—she's just friends with Madison. Pouty Heidi isn't her real name—it's Heidi Burnett—but she never seemed to smile, so Bri and I called her Pouty Heidi behind her back all the time. The crazy thing was she looked like a young, just as pretty version of some famous Hollywood actress like Zoe Saldana. Heidi has big eyes and delicate features and a so-cute pixie haircut that would make me look like a boy.

If I had been her, I seriously would never
stop
smiling.

Shane was there too, the new kid.

“Nina, this is Shane,” Tiernan said.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Hi, Shane.”

“Yo,” he said back. He was wearing a faded orange T-shirt with the name of a band my dad listens to. It made his orange hair look even brighter.

He didn't have any food in front of him, just a red drink box. It had plain letters and no pictures of happy fruit tumbling around, the way normal juice boxes do.

“What's that?” I asked him, pointing to it.

“Oh, this is Tropical Punch Disgustingness. The other flavors I sometimes drink are Lemon-Lime Vomit, and Cherry Dog Turd.”

I gave him a look.

“I'm allergic to, like, everything,” he explained. “But luckily for my taste buds, I can still enjoy these wonderful allergy-free, completely man-made, not found in nature nutrition supplements!”

He held it up before taking a big gulp and then making a fake gagging noise.

Tiernan was cracking up. “I used to drink those stupid things before I outgrew my dairy allergy. They do, in fact, all taste exactly like a small, rabid animal died and they marinated it in a rancid Creamsicle for a year and then strained it and served it to you with a straw.”

Tiernan grabbed Shane's drink and waved it in Madison's face. “Want some?”

“Gross!” she yelled, leaning so far backward she was almost horizontal. “No, thank you.”

It was impressive how Shane was so laid-back. If I couldn't have anything at lunch but a weird drink, I'd be bummed. He seemed not to care at all. I could take a few stress-busting pointers from him.

The lunch aides were clapping their blue-gloved hands, signaling it was time to start packing up our stuff to make room for the next grade. I walked out with Tiernan, making the hugest effort not to turn my head around to look for Brianna. Not looking, though, never works out for me, so of course in my quest to stare straight ahead I didn't even notice Ethan was standing next to me until I heard him say something to Tiernan.

“Ack!” I shrieked.

Very
smooth, Nina.

Shelley and Brianna were right. Ethan did get cute. He got adorable. I'd caught myself staring at him a few times during class when I was totally, one hundred percent sure he wasn't looking my way, in between bouts of moping about Brianna ignoring me. My entire range of emotions lately had been mope, sulk, stare, stare, mope, mope some more, and pity myself.

Even Ethan's gray T-shirt with the slightly ripped collar looked cute on him. He had a dark blue baseball cap stuck into the back pocket of his jeans. That was adorable too.

He and Tiernan started talking about hanging out after school, and their wizards and spellcasters and a bunch of other stuff that made no sense.

I knew that Ethan hung out with Tiernan because they were neighbors. I didn't realize Ethan was into Tiernan's fantasy game madness though.

“How's your wizard, Nina?” Ethan said, cracking up.

“Very funny. I don't know what you guys are talking about.”

“You could come hang out sometime and find out,” Ethan said. “We'll teach you. It's not that complicated, and I bet you'd pick it up fast.” He looked right at me. And smiled, in his totally friendly, always nice to everyone, Ethan way.

How come I never noticed how Ethan's dark hair curled behind his ears so it was the perfect kind of messy, or how gorgeous his skin looked? Not a bump or anything.

I was smitten.

Or was it smitted? Smited? Or was that when you get burned in a fire?

I couldn't believe we used to have sleepovers! I blushed and then got so flustered I didn't even know what to say about hanging out or anything. So I said nothing, of course. That seemed to be my theme of the week: Nina, the great wit.

But Tiernan dug into his bag and pulled out a video game, changing the subject and therefore saving me without even realizing it.

“Check this out,” he said, handing it to Ethan.

“Oh, yeah, we're on,” Ethan said back, giving Tiernan a very gentle punch on the shoulder.

Tiernan sneezed in response.

Tiernan had saved me from death by shame twice in the last thirty minutes. I owed him, big time.

“Seriously, you should hang out with us later,” Ethan said.

Did he mean later as in
Come
hang
out
with
us
later
today
? Or like,
Let's hang in the very distant future when you stop acting so weird
? Before I could figure it out, Ethan slung his backpack over one shoulder and bounced off down the halls, leaving me feeling silly and tongue-tied and happier than I'd been in days.

I thought about asking Tiernan what the deal was with his plans with Ethan but decided against it.

Too scary.

Scary if Ethan didn't want me to hang out, and doubly terrifying if he did. What would we talk about? Would I blow it?

Instead, I did what any mature young woman would do in my shoes: I avoided the entire issue and went straight home instead as soon as school let out.

It was a huge relief to walk inside. I was so exhausted from all the highs and lows of the day. I felt like I'd just been a contestant on a crazy reality show—like where you're given a ball of string and three sticks of gum and have to make it out of the jungle alive. Except my jungle was Woodgrove Middle School.

I couldn't wait to finally crash on my bed and listen to music for the rest of the afternoon and be by myself.

But when Jackson and I walked through our front hallway, I noticed that the dining room table was set with the pretty bamboo place mats that we never use unless we have company—adult company, not, like, a friend of mine or Jackson's—and that the house smelled nice. Dinner party nice. There was plenty of noise coming from the kitchen too—banging and whisking and whirring.

“Hi, guys!” Mom said, coming out to the hall to greet us wearing her “All Hail the Chef” apron Dad gave her last year for Mother's Day.

“Do you want something to eat?” she asked us, adding, like always, “Wash your hands.”

I rolled my eyes but walked over to the kitchen sink anyway. The school bus is epically gross, I admit. While the bus is waiting to pull out, the fifth grade boys like to play “Pull My Finger” and compete for the loudest, foulest fart bragging rights, and on Fridays they have a contest they call the “Hock-a-Loogie Olympics.” Plus little Joe Frieburn throws up on the ride home every time the cafeteria serves chili. It is the worst.

I was halfway up the stairs to my room when Mom called out of the kitchen, “Nina? Nina? Come back.”

I sighed and went back downstairs.

“What, Mom?” I said, eyeing the plate of chocolaty cookie bars on the counter. “What are those?”

“No-Bake ‘Mocklate' Chocolate Energy Bars.” She passed the plate toward me. “Try one.”

I took a tentative bite. Tasty!

“It's for the book. I'm making a few new things to try out tonight. Shreya is coming over.”

“Who?” I said, a crumb falling out of my mouth where Pepper was waiting, tail wagging, to snarf it up.

“Shreya. Dr. Mehta.” Mom stirred something on the stove with a wooden spoon and put the lid back on. “Remember, I told you a few weeks ago that she was going to come over for dinner some night to talk about the cookbook?”

Dr. Mehta is my allergist. I go to her once a year for blood tests and to find out that, yes, big shock, I still can't eat peanuts or eggs.

“She's going to write the introduction.” Mom was clearly excited—she was talking with her hands as much as her mouth. “This is a big deal. She's quite a well-known name in the allergy community, and—”

“Mom, really, she has to come over for dinner? Tonight? Is she going to want to give me a check-up or something while she's here?”

“Don't be silly. She's coming to eat. So she can try some of my food and we can talk about what she'll be writing.”

“That's weird. No one else's doctor comes over to hang out. Doesn't she have better things to do?”

“Nina, I explained this. And I thought you liked Dr. Mehta.” Mom sounded like she was only half listening to me.

“She's fine, Mom. But that doesn't mean I want to spend my free time with her. Sheesh!”

Dr. Mehta is nice and all, even though she used to be obsessed with whether I was eating enough and gaining enough weight and upping my protein intake and blah blah blah. Her office would make my parents bring me in twice a year to step on the scale. She may be a genius when it comes to allergies, but that was completely annoying. I'm scrawny. And short. So sue me!

Also she once suggested to my parents that they serve me mini meatballs on toothpicks to fatten me up, so I swear we used to have that for dinner five nights a week. If I never see a meatball again, it will be too soon. Memo to parents everywhere: Just because you cook something teeny-tiny does not mean it's any more appealing. Your child knows it's still a boring old meatball, doll-sized or not!

It wasn't the guest that was the problem, anyway, it was my mother. Every time she promotes one of her cookbooks, I get trotted out like a specimen. She's talked about me in interviews. I've been in photos on the back of her book, looking enthusiastic while I pretended to eat something. I even had to be her sous chef the time our local TV station had her come on for their morning show and make her special soy blondies (aka her “SoLongy SoBlondies”—don't ask about the name, it's the worst).

Mom got so overly enthusiastic that while she was serving the blondies to the news anchor and the weather guy, she described them as “Amazeballs.” Twice. I almost died. But instead I valiantly pretended I thought the whole thing was, yep, amazeballs!

This time, I didn't feel like pretending that having food allergies was so great. Let Jackson hang out with Dr. Mehta. He's the one who's obsessed with all things medical anyway, not me.

“I don't feel that well, actually,” I said, trying to make a coughing noise. “Something is going around school. A virus. I better go lie down. And I have all that homework.” I looked hopefully at Mom.

Mom gave me a not at all sympathetic look.

Of course she wasn't going to let me off the hook for her precious cookbook.

Great. Just great.