Taffy Sinclair 007 - Taffy Sinclair and the Secret Admirer Epidemic (2 page)

Melanie was standing by the door with her hand on the knob. Suddenly she let go of it and rushed to me.
"
I
'
ve got a great idea, Jana,
"
she cried.
"
I
'
ll have Scott find out what
'
s going on. I
'
ll have him ask Randy if he
'
s going to take you to the movie, and I
'
ll make Scott promise not to tell Randy who wants to know.
"

I
didn
'
t say anything for a moment. I wanted to find out what Randy was
going to do more than anything
in the world, but I was nervous, too.

"
Well,
"
I said slowly.
"
It might work, but you
'
ve got to make Scott
swear
he won
'
t tell Randy that I
'
m the one who wants to know. If Randy ever found that out, I
'
d be so embarrassed that I
'
d die.
"

"
Don
'
t worry,
"
said Melanie, giving me a confident smile.
"
Leave everything to me.
"

Th
e first thing I saw when I got to school the next morning made my heart start thumping like crazy. Melanie was by the bike racks, and she was talking to Scott.

I looked away fast. I would die if Scott saw me watching and figured out what was going on. Maybe it had been a mistake to let Melanie talk to him. Maybe Randy just hadn
'
t gotten around to asking me, and if Scott started bugging him about it, he would change his mind. Good grief, I thought. Why had I let Melanie talk me into this?

Keeping my face turned straight ahead so that they wouldn
'
t know I was watching, I looked at them out of the corner of my eye. They were still
talking. Why was it taking so long? I tried to read their lips, but I couldn
'
t, and they were definitely too far away to hear.

I turned halfway toward them so that I could get a better look. Scott was smiling. In fact, he was laughing. What could Melanie possibly have said to make him laugh like that? Oh, my gosh, I thought. Did he think it was a big joke that Randy might ask me out again?

I wanted to die. That was probably it. Scott knew something that I didn
'
t know. I closed my eyes and leaned against a tree, wishing that the ground would open up and swallow me. When I opened them again, Melanie was rushing toward me, grinning like crazy. My other three best friends had just gotten to school and were walking toward me, too.

"
What did he say?
"
I demanded before Melanie could get a word out.
"
Does he know why Randy hasn
'
t asked me out yet? And why was he laughing? Tell me every single word you said.
"

"
Wow,
"
Melanie said proudly.
"
Did I ever fake him out. He never suspected a thing.
"

"
So?
"
I insisted.
"
What did you say?
"

"
Come on, Mel,
"
groaned Katie.
"
Quit stalling.
"

"
All I said was that I thought Saturday was going to be a lot of fun a
nd I was glad so many kids were
going. Then,
"
Melanie paused and got a mysterious look on her face,
"
I
very casually
said,
'
I suppose Randy is going, too. Is he taking Jana?
'"

"
Oh, my gosh!
"
I blurted.
"
What did he say?
"

"
He just shrugged and said he didn
'
t know. And then I said,
'
Would you ask him and let me know?
'
and he shrugged again and said,
'
Sure.
'
That
'
s all there was to it. As I said before, he didn
'
t suspect a thing.
"

"
So what was he laughing about?
"
I challenged.
"
Are you sure it wasn
'
t about me?
"

"
Of course not, silly. We were just talking. It had nothing to do with you.
"

"
Then why won
'
t you tell us?
"

"
It was private. Did you tell everything that you and Randy talked about when he kissed you?
"
she teased.

My friends were grinning at me, and I could feel my ears getting hot and my face turning a brilliant shade of red. Naturally, I hadn
'
t told them
everything.
Some things are just too personal to tell even your very best friends.

"
Did you ask why all the boys are getting dates?
"
asked Katie.

Melanie frowned at her.
"
You don
'
t really think I would ask Scott
why
he wants to take me to the movie, do you?
"

Katie shrugged. Leave it to Katie, I thought, always putting a damper on things.

Just then Randy came screeching up to the bike racks.

"
Look, Jana,
"
cried Beth.
"
There he is.
"

I nodded and knelt down, pretending to be fixing my shoelace so that
I could watch as he pushed his
bike into a slot in the rack and locked it. Then he went racing over to Scott, and the two of them started horsing around.

"
Rats!
"
I muttered.
"
That was a perfect opportunity for Scott to talk to him, but he blew it.
"

"
Don
'
t worry,
"
Melanie insisted.
"
He
'
ll do it. He said he would, didn
'
t he?
"

I shot her a dubious look and scuffed toward the school building. Sure, Melanie was convinced that Scott would talk to Randy, I thought miserably. But what if he didn
'
t? Or what if he did—and found out that Randy didn
'
t like me anymore? And wasn
'
t going to ask me to the movie on Saturday? And was going to take Taffy Sinclair instead? What would I do then?

When I got to my locker, I opened the door and stared inside, thinking about that question. What
would
I do then? How would I face my friends? How would I face my number one enemy, Taffy Sinclair? I
'
d be so embarrassed that I
'
d die.

I got to our classroom ahead of Randy and was already in my seat when he came in. I was waiting for him to look at me and give me his 1,000-watt smile, but he didn
'
t. He didn
'
t turn around to look at me the way he sometimes did while Wiggins wrote the morning
'
s math assignment on the board, either. I tried to tell myself that it was nothing to worry about. That just because he missed smiling at me one time, it wasn
'
t the end of the world. But the truth is, that
'
s how it felt.

During morning recess all the sixth-grade girls were talking about their dates for the movie. Alexis Duvall kept saying that Mark Peters was the cutest boy in the whole world and how she hoped that he would kiss her.

"
Has Randy asked you yet?
"
Sara Sawyer asked. Everybody looked at me, including Taffy Sinclair, who was standing with Mona Vaughn at the edge of the group of girls.

I wanted to die.
"
Not yet,
"
I mumbled.

"
I wonder what he
'
s waiting for?
"
asked Alexis.
"
Mark asked me yesterda
y.
"

"
That
'
s when Joel asked me, too,
"
said Sara.

Taffy Sinclair got a nasty smile on her face.
"
Maybe Randy
'
s going to ask someone else,
"
she said.

I shrugged, trying to act as if it didn
'
t matter, and moved away from the crowd. I didn
'
t want to talk about it anymore. Especially to Taffy Sinclair. It was bad enough that he hadn
'
t asked me yet. Did everybody have to make a big deal out of it, too?

I sat down on the front steps and gazed out across the playground, wishing recess would hurry up and be over. Just as Beth sat down beside me, I looked sharply at two boys by the drinking fountain.
"
Look,
"
I whispered to Beth.
"
There are Scott and Randy over by the fountain. It looks as if they
'
re talking about something serious.
"

"
I
'
ll bet it
'
s you,
"
said Beth.

I clutched Beth
'
s arm.
"
Oh, my gosh. What will I do if Randy says he isn
'
t going to ask me?
"

"
Relax. He
'
s your boyfriend, isn
'
t he? Of course he
'
s going to ask you.
"

I exhaled a deep breath that I didn
'
t realize I had been holding.
"
Sure,
"
I murmured.
"
You
'
re probably right.
"

I passed a note to Melanie the moment we were back inside and told her what I had seen. A few minutes later she passed one back that said she would talk to Scott at lunchtime and find out what
Randy had said. I glanced at the clock over the blackboard. Fifty-seven minutes until the lunch bell. More like fifty-seven years, I thought.

Wiggins marched us to the Media Center for free-reading peri
od, which was the longest free-
reading period I had ever lived through. I couldn
'
t stand to sit at the reading tables or the typewriter or computer tables, where other kids could see how antsy I was, so I hid in the biography section and pretended to look for a book.

When I finally got to the cafeteria, I couldn
'
t eat one single bite of my lunch. I kept pulling apart the halves of my cream cheese and jelly sandwich and sticking them back together. It was a dumb thing to do, but I was so nervous that I had to do something.

To make matters worse, the cafeteria was a madhouse. One table of fourth-graders was zinging peas back and forth at each other until Mr. Scott, the assistant principal, made them stop. Then he stood guard beside them and blocked our view of the table where Randy and Scott and all their friends were sitting.

Melanie must have seen the agony on my face.
"
Don
'
t worry, Jana. I
'
m keeping an eye on the door. The minute I see Scott leave, I
'
ll go talk to him.
"

I nodded and pulled my sandwich apart for the millionth time.

A few minutes later Melanie sprang to attention.
"
There he goes,
"
she said, ducking down again and peering around Beth
'
s shoulder at the door.
"
Okay, everybody. Give me a few minutes to talk to Scott and then meet me at our usual place beside the fence.
"

Katie and Beth and Ch
ristie and I all nodded. This w
as it. My stomach was churning so fast that I knew if I had eaten my lunch, I would throw it all up now.

My friends and I scrambled to clean our lunch things off the table and get out of the cafeteria. Then we hurried to the spot by the fence where we always meet when we want to talk about something private.

Melanie and Scott were standing by the building, and I hopped from one foot to the other as I watched them.
"
I wonder how long it will take her to talk to him?
"
I said.

Nobody answered, and a couple of minutes later Melanie headed in our direction. I couldn
'
t help noticing that she wasn
'
t smiling. In fact, she looked as if something were terribly wrong.
"
Oh, no,
"
I whispered to myself.

"
Did you ask him?
"
I demanded.
"
What did he say?
"

Melanie took a deep breath. She looked so miserable that I knew what was coming before the first word was out of her mouth.
"
Scott said that he asked Randy if he was planning to take you to the movie Saturday, and he said no. Oh, Jana!
"
She rushed up and put her arms around me.
"
I can
'
t believe it. He
'
s your boyfriend!
"