Taffy Sinclair 007 - Taffy Sinclair and the Secret Admirer Epidemic (8 page)

T
he bell rang as soon as I got out of Mrs. Winchell
'
s office, and I was glad that I had to go straight to class. I certainly didn
'
t feel like talking to anybody. Not even to my four best friends. I was just too depressed. I knew they would be dying to know what I was doing in the principal
'
s office. How could I tell them that she thought I was writing secret admirer notes to myself? And maybe to another person, also? It was just too humiliating.

I sank into my seat and was only partly aware of Wiggins
'
s taking roll and making the morning announcements. I had too many things on my mind to pay attention or even to watch to see which
boys were looking at me. What did it matter anyway—if the notes were just a joke? Then I thought about all the times Keith had looked at me and the worried expression he had had when he helped me up in the hall. The notes couldn
'
t be a joke. They just couldn
'
t!

At morning recess my friends were all as chirpy as birds. They had no way of knowing how miserable I felt.

"
Did you see how many times Randy Kirwan was looking at you this morning?
"
cried Beth. She was dancing around excitedly and pointing to her chart.
"
I saw him three times.
"

"
I saw him twice,
"
said Melanie. She was almost
as excited as Beth.
"
I think he was trying to get your attention.
"

A rush of hope swept over me for an instant, but it was gone again as I remembered seeing Randy in the hall. He had been trying to get my attention then, too, but from the look on his face I knew he was going to give me bad news.

"
He was probably going to tell me that he doesn
'
t like me anymore and that he
'
s taking Taffy out on Saturday,
"
I said dejectedly.

"
Jana, how can you say that?
"
asked Christie in an exasperated voice.
"
He
'
s your BOYFRIEND!
I
'
d give anything if Mr. Scott would look at me three whole times in one morning.
"

I explained to them about seeing Randy in the hall on my way to the office to see Mrs. Winchell and the funny look he
'
d had on his face. Then I told them about trying to get away before he could say anything and running smack into Keith Masterson.

"
I know Keith
'
s my secret admirer.
"
I sounded more confident than I felt.
"
No matter what Mrs. Winchell thinks.
"

The moment I said that I knew I had goofed. My friends were looking at me questioningly, and then Christie asked slowly,
"
What do you mean? What does my mother think?
"

"
She thinks I sent the notes to myself to get attention and that I even sent a note to someone else.
"
I blurted.

Christie got a horrified look on her face, but she didn
'
t say anything. It was Katie who asked,
"
She thinks you sent a note to someone else? What are you talking about?
"

"
There is someone in this school who has gotten a secret admirer note, also. Mrs. Winchell wanted to see my notes to check for similarities. She thinks I wrote all of them because I was using the
typewriter after school yesterday and they
'
re all typed. Not only that, but the other letter has some of the same words in it as mine.
"

"
That doesn
'
t prove anything,
"
said Christie.

"
I know that,
"
I said,
"
but SHE thinks it does.
"

"
Who is the other person who got a secret admirer note?
"
asked Beth.

"
I don
'
t know,
"
I confessed.
"
Mrs. Winchell said the other person wanted it kept a secret.
"

"
That sounds dumb to me,
"
said Melanie.
"
I
'
d think she
'
d want everybody to know.
"

"
At first I thought it might be Taffy Sinclair,
"
I off
ered.
"
But you
'
re right, Mel. She
'
d want everybody in the world to know. But the worst thing is that Mrs. Winchell thinks I
'
ve done something terrible, and it
'
s all because of the person who wrote that other note. What am I going to do?
"

Beth put an arm around me and gave me a sympathetic hug, but she didn
'
t offer any suggestions. Neither did anybody else. I could see they were as worried as I was.

Christie had been drawing circles in the dirt with the toe of her sneaker. Finally she stopped and said in a tiny voice,
"
I know who the other pers
on is who has a secret admirer.
"

"
You?!
"
I cried.
"
Why didn
'
t you tell us?
"

Christie was shaking her head.
"
It isn
'
t me. It
'
s . . . it
'
s Mr. Scott. I know because I wrote him the note.
"

I was too flabbergasted to say anything as Christie went on with her story.
"
It seemed like such a good idea. He never pays any attention to me, and I think he
'
s so wonderful. I wasn
'
t trying to get a date with him or anything. I know that will never happen. I just wanted him to know that somebody really likes him.
"

"
So you copied the first note I got from my secret admirer and left it where he could find it.
"
Christie nodded.
"
I wrote,
'
Dear Mr. Scott, I am writing to tell you that I have been noticing you for a long time. I think you are very nice and very handsome. I know that you probably like someone else, but I will keep hoping that someday you will like me. Your Secret Admirer.
'
You
'
ve got to believe me, Jana. I had no idea that he would show it to my mother.
"

Part of me was sympathetic with Christie, but part of me wasn
'
t.
"
But I
'
M the one who got in trouble,
"
I insisted.

"
Oh, please, PLEASE don
'
t tell on me,
"
Christie begged.
"
I
'
ll do anything you want me to. You just can
'
t tell her. Okay?
"

"
Didn
'
t you hear me? I
'
m the one she thinks wrote all the notes.
"

"
But you didn
'
t,
"
said Melanie.
"
And when Keith asks you to the movie, you
'
ll have proof that he wrote the ones to you. Mrs. Winchell will believe you then.
"

"
Oh, she will!
"
said Christie.
"
I know my mom. She
'
ll believe you.
"

I sighed, wondering how I ever got myself into these things.
"
Okay,
"
I said at last.
"
I
'
ll keep my mouth shut for now, but this had better work out the way you said, Christie. That
'
s all there is to it.
"

Christie kept bugging me to let her do something to pay me back for not telling her mother the truth. I kept telling her that best friends don
'
t have to pay each other back, but after recess when Wiggins took us to the Media Center for free reading again, I got this great idea.

I was sitting at one of the library tables doodling in my notebook. I was thinking about all the secret admirer notes that had been sent to people since the week began and all the problems they had caused. I shook my head in wonder as I thought about all those notes spreading around like the flu. It was practically an epidemic.

First there were my notes. The first one had made me ecstatic, and so had the second one. Even
the third one, the one asking me to wear something red to school today if I liked movies, had been sort of fun at first. But now I wasn
'
t sure I really had a secret admirer, and Mrs. Winchell thought I wrote those notes myself. Then there was the note to Mr. Scott. How could Christie have done something so dumb? Now her mother suspected me of writing it and practically thought I was a criminal. Last was the note I had written to Mom to try to add some excitement to her life. I hadn
'
t meant to frighten her to death.

Still, the more I thought about Mom, the more I realized that the only way I could get her to stop worrying was to write one more note. Just one more. That
'
s all it would take. I glanced over at the typewriter. No one was using it. But what if Mrs. Birney was watching? What if Mrs. Winchell had asked her to report everybody who typed on it? I
'
d be in more trouble than ever. But nobody suspected Christie, and she
'
d be glad to do it for me. Especially when I explained about the trouble I had started by writing a secret admirer note to Mom. In a way, Christie and I were in the same boat and could help each other out. I smiled to myself and began deciding what the note would say
.

B
y lunchtime I was beginning to see red. I had been wearing my red jumpsuit all day, not to mention red socks and red barrettes, and Keith had not said one word to me about the movie. After Christie typed the secret admirer note for my mom in the Media Center, I began paying more attention to him. He was looking at me again. I caught him twice before we had to go back to our homeroom. So, why hadn
'
t he said anything to me yet?

The first person I saw when my friends and I got onto the playground after lunch was Taffy Sinclair. She was standing with Mona, and when she saw me she got the biggest smirk on her face I had ever seen.

"
I see you
'
re wearing
red
today, Jana,
"
she said in a sarcastic voice.

"
I happen to like red. In fact, it
'
s my favorite color.
"

"
I
'
ll bet it is. It
'
s too bad you aren
'
t going to the movie with everybody Saturday.
"

Her words hit me like a bolt of lightning. I looked at her, and she was still smirking. What did she mean by that? I was dying to ask her, but I didn
'
t dare. When she said everybody, was she including herself? Had my worst fears come true? Did she have a date with Rand
y?

"
I
'
m going to get a drink,
"
I mumbled, stomping off toward the drinking fountain by the building. I had to get away from there. I was so mad at Taffy Sinclair that if I stayed around her any longer, I didn
'
t know what terrible thing I might do.

As I bent over the fountain, I heard my name.

"
Hey, Jana. Can I talk to you a minute?
"

It was Keith. He was trotting up behind me, giving me a great big smile. My knees went weak. I could almost hear those violins again.

"
Hi, Keith. What
'
s up?
"
I said as casually as possible.

"
There
'
s something I need to ask you,
"
he said, and then I could swear that he almost blushed. My heart was pounding.

"
I guess you know a lot of guys are asking girls to go to the movie this weekend?
"
he asked
self
-
consciously.

I nodded.

"
At first, it was just Scott and Joel and Mark who were going on a dare. Joel said Scott didn
'
t have enough nerve to ask Melanie for a real date, and then Scott said Joel didn
'
t have enough nerve to ask Sara, and then they both jumped on Mark to ask Alexis. Stuff like that. Well, anyway, now some more guys are thinking of asking girls, and
. . ."
Keith paused as if he was losing his nerve. I thought I
'
d die. I almost wished I could say the words for him.

He was shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Suddenly he gave me a big grin and blurted,
"
Do you think Beth would go with me if I ask her?
"

You could have knocked me over with one red sock. So that
'
s why he had been staring at me all week. He didn
'
t want to ask
me.
He wanted to ask Beth.

Keith was still talking.
"
She
'
s your best friend, so you
'
d probably know if she would go. Do you think I should ask her?
"

"
Sure. Why don
'
t you talk to her right now? She
'
s over there.
"

I pointed toward my friends, turning so that Keith could not see the disappointment on my face. I was happy for Beth. Really happy. But what about me?

Beth was delirious when she told me the news a few minutes later.
"
Oh, Jana,
"
she cried, clutching my arm.
"
Keith asked me to the movie! He asked ME! He said he talked to you first.
"
Then she paused and got a concerned look.
"
You aren
'
t mad, are you? I know you thought he was your secret admirer.
"

"
Of course I
'
m not mad,
"
I said, hugging her. Then I managed to give her a big smile.
"
I think it
'
s great. I just didn
'
t know that you liked him. Why didn
'
t you tell me?
"

Beth looked a little sheepish.
"
I
'
ve always thought he was cute,
"
she admitted,
"
but then, when you decided he was your secret admirer, I started paying more attention to him. That was when I decided he
'
s not just cute, he
'
s
fantastic
!
I didn
'
t want to tell you, though, because I thought he liked you. And Jana,
"
she added,
"
thanks for not being mad.
"

How could I be mad at my best friend just because the boy she thought was fantastic had just asked her to go to the movie? It
'
s just that I thought he was cute, too, and now that I had lost Randy, I didn
'
t have anyone.

Beth and Melanie giggled and talked about what they were going to wear Saturday until the bell rang. I tried to join in, but I couldn
'
t. When I got back to my seat, I pulled my chart out of my notebook and drew a
line through Keith Master
son
'
s name. If he wasn
'
t my secret admirer, then who was? I had already eliminated Randy and Scott and Mark and Joel. Now Keith was eliminated, too. I
'
d die if it were Clarence or Curtis or Gregory, so that only left Richie or Eric or Matt. Richie had only looked at me once, and Eric once and a half. I sighed. Matt Zeboski had looked at me four times, just one time less than Keith, but he had only ranked
"
almost semi-cute
"
on the cute scale.

Suddenly a terrible thought occurred to me, and I looked up slowly as my eyes focused on the back of Taffy Sinclair
'
s head four seats in front of me. I was remembering what she had said to me on the playground at noon.
I see you're wearing red today
,
Jana.
How did Taffy Sinclair know that my secret admirer had told me to wear red? I had gotten that note after school and nobody knew about it except my four best friends and Mrs. Winchell.

I racked my brain for a few minutes, trying to figure out how she knew about it. Had one of them slipped and said something in front of her on the playground this morning? I was pretty sure they hadn
'
t as I thought back over the scene before school. She had come up to my friends and me and had accused me of writing the notes myself. I frowned. I did pull them out of my notebook and wave them at her to prove they were real, but she didn
'
t take them or look at them closely. There was no way she could have read the one telling me to wear red.

My heart began to pound. If my
friends hadn
'
t slipped, and I was almost positive they hadn
'
t, there was only one other possible explanation. The person who wrote my secret admirer notes was Taffy Sinclair!

At recess I mot
ioned for my friends to follow
me to our spot by the fence, where we could talk in private. Then I told them what I suspected.

"
Taffy Sinclair is your secret admirer!
"
Katie shrieked.

She started to
laugh, but I gave her a poison-
dart look, and she stopped.
"
Everybody think hard. Did any of you say anything—I mean ANYTHING—that would have tipped off Taffy that my secret admirer told me to wear red?
"

My friends all thought for a moment. Then they frowned and shook their heads in unison.

"
Then she has to be the one who wrote the notes,
"
I insisted.

"
I don
'
t understand why Taffy Sinclair would want you to have a secret admirer instead of her,
"
said Melanie.
"
You know how conceited she is. Wouldn
'
t you think she
'
d want all that attention for herself?
"

"
Yeah,
"
said Beth.
"
I
'
d think that if she were going to write fake secret admirer notes, she
'
d write them to herself.
"

"
I
'
ve been thinking about that,
"
I said.
"
At first I felt the same way you do. But then I thought of something else. Taffy has been trying to take Randy away from me practically forever. She has flirted with him and tried everything she could think of, but nothing worked because he liked me and I liked him.
"

"
So?
"
asked Christie.
"
How does sending you secret admirer notes change that?
"

"
He hasn
'
t asked me to the movie on Saturday, right? So she probably thinks he
'
s losing interest in me. Now, get this. What if I get mad about that? And then what if I find out that I have this fabulous secret admirer? And what if I get carried away with my secret admirer and I lose interest in Randy!
Don
'
t you see? Then Taffy
can have Randy all for herself!
"

Beth slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand.
"
That
'
s brilliant, Jana. That has to be it! She even acted jealous to throw you off
-
track.
"

"
I agree,
"
said Katie.

"
Me, too,
"
said Christie.
"
Taffy Sinclair is a rat.
"

"
The worst thing is, I WAS getting carried away with my secret admirer,
"
I said.
"
I got madder and madder at Randy, and if Keith had asked me to the movie, I would have gone. Taffy Sinclair
'
s plan almost worked!
"

"
But it didn
'
t,
"
said Melanie.
"
You should be happy about that.
"

"
I won
'
t be happy until I accomplish TWO things,
"
I said.
"
Get Randy back and get revenge on Taffy Sinclair!
"