Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life (17 page)

I couldn’t believe that MacKenzie actually came to school on crutches today. She even stuck little heart stickers on them so that they matched her new Gucci hobo handbag. Only someone as vain as MacKenzie would try to look CUTE while hobbling around on crutches. She didn’t have a cast on her leg or anything. Just a SpongeBob Band-Aid below her left knee. HOW FAKE IS THAT?!!

According to the latest gossip, MacKenzie was taking scuba diving lessons on Saturday from this really hot ninth grader when she “ruptured her shin” while saving him from drowning. She supposedly did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on him until the ambulance arrived. And since the poor guy’s dying wish was for her to escort him to the hospital, she was forced to cancel her birthday party. So she rescheduled it for Saturday, October 12th at her parents’ country club. I was like, Yeah, RIGHT!

MacKenzie is such a LIAR and a DRAMA QUEEN! Why couldn’t she just tell the truth and admit her
party was canceled because her house was infested with bugs and stank from bug spray?

Anyway, today I could hardly wait for lunch. Chloe and Zoey were even more excited than I was. We sat at our usual table and snarfed down our lunch as fast as we could.

Then I rolled up Zoey’s sleeve, took out my lucky pen, and got started on her tattoo. She kept giggling and squirming and saying it tickled. I said,

“LISTEN, ZOEY, SHUT UP AND SIT STILL OR I’M GONNA TURN ANY STRAY INK MARKS INTO UGLY BABY SNAKES!!”

Lucky for her, she stopped moving after that.

Practically everyone in the cafeteria was staring at us, but I ignored them and kept right on working. Zoey’s tattoo turned out really cool, and she loved it.

I was just getting started on Chloe’s tattoo when the weirdest thing happened.

Jason Feldman got up, left the CCP table, and sat down at OUR table to watch. He’s just
THE
most popular guy in the entire school and president of the student council.

On the cuteness scale, I would say he was a 9.93 out of 10.

“You’re doing a tattoo with a pen?! Cool! It looks so real. I should know because my brother just got one for his eighteenth birthday.”

“It’s our special LSA project for National Library Week,” Chloe said, and batted her eyelashes at him all flirtylike.

“Yeah! And all the latest fashion magazines say tattoos are HAWT!” Zoey added in this really nasally voice that sounded a lot like Paris Hilton.

Those two were acting so phony-baloney, it was sickening. I thought I was going to puke up my lunch right in Jason’s lap.

“So what do I have to do to get one?” Jason asked excitedly. “Donate a book or something? Do you have a sign-up sheet?”

Zoey’s and Chloe’s faces lit up at the same time,
and I could see the little lightbulb click on in their brains.

I just sighed and rolled my eyes. First it was the tattoo thing, then
Ballet of the Zombies,
and then running away to live in the secret underground tunnels at the NYC public library.

I didn’t know if I could put up with much more of this drama.

Chloe fluttered her eyelashes at Jason again. “Well, Nikki is art director, I’m overseeing book procurement, and Zoey here handles scheduling. Zoey, would you please give Jason our sign-up sheet?”

“Er…what sign-up sheet?” Zoey asked, looking confused.

Chloe winked at her and said really loudly, “You know, the
SIGN-UP SHEET
in your
NOTEBOOK
, silly!”

Finally, Zoey caught on. “Oh,
THAT
sign-up sheet! Of course!” She gazed at Jason and giggled nervously.

Zoey whipped out her notebook, tore out a sheet of paper, scribbled TATTOO SIGN-UP SHEET across the top, and handed it to Chloe.

Chloe added the words BOOK DONATION REQUIRED (NEW OR USED)!! in big bold letters and gave it to Jason.

I was shocked and appalled to see Chloe and Zoey lying like that. I always felt honesty was a very important quality in a friend.

Jason scrawled his name on the sign-up sheet and then yelled to his lunch table on the other side of the cafeteria, “Hey, Crenshaw! Get Thompson and come check this out.”

Ryan Crenshaw was a 9.86, and Matt Thompson was a 9.98. They both came over and sat down at OUR table, right next to Jason.

Then the three of them started laughing and talking to me, Chloe, and Zoey like we were CCP girls or something.

That’s when I decided that, although an honest friend was nice, an “I-can-hook-you-up-with-really-cute-guys” friend was far better.

And besides, Chloe and Zoey weren’t actually lying. They were just over-embellishing some fabricated truths.

Even though I was enjoying all of the unexpected attention, there was an incessant gnawing deep down inside my gut that had me really worried.

WHY were the three most popular CCP guys suddenly sitting at a lunch table, flirting with Chloe, Zoey, and me, the three biggest DORKS in the school?

And WHAT exactly did they want from us?

Then I had to force myself to ponder the most
INTRIGUING and TROUBLING question of all…

Was my lucky pen going to MELT from all of the CCP GUY HOTNESS?!

Here are the THREE reasons why I was a little worried about my pen…

Within minutes, seven more guys had crashed our table and were passing around the sign-up sheet and boasting about how wicked their tat was going to be.

I finally finished up Chloe’s tattoo, and she said it was perfect.

Jason rolled up his sleeve and took Chloe’s place.

“Hey, dudes. Listen up! Mine is gonna say, ‘GUITAR HERO’!!”

All of the guys started slapping him on the back and giving him high fives and fist bumps. He was acting all smug, like he was getting a new sports car or something.

Then a large crowd of girls gathered around the large crowd of guys to watch me work on Jason’s tattoo.

“Isn’t she the new girl?”

“I think her locker is right next to MacKenzie’s.”

“She’s like
THE
best artist in the entire school.”

“Hey, I wanna sign up! Give me the sheet next…”

“What’s her name?”

“Mikki, Rikki, or Vicki, I think.”

“Whatever her name is, the girl’s got SKILLZ.”

“I’m SOOO jealous! I can’t draw a stick figure.”

“She’s in my French class. Her name is Nikki Maxwell!”

“I’d LOVE to draw on Jason Feldman. He’s HAWT!”

“OMG! I’d give ANYTHING to be Nikki Maxwell!”

I was starting to feel like a POP STAR!

The only CCPs not at our table were MacKenzie and her little group. They were GLARING at us from across the cafeteria.

By the end of lunch period, I had completed seven tattoos, Chloe had collected nine books, and Zoey had scheduled eleven people to get tattoos tomorrow at lunch.

We decided to call our new LSA project:

“Ink Exchange: Trade a Book for a Tattoo!”

In no time, the ENTIRE school was gossiping about it.

Mrs. Peach said collecting books for charity was a wonderful idea, and she was really proud of us. Brandon even congratulated me and said he wanted to interview me for the school newspaper on Friday since I was “breaking news.” He said he planned to photograph a few students showing off their new tattoos for the article. Now I can hardly wait for Friday to get here
! There’s a chance we might actually become good friends.