The Forever Crush (10 page)

I thought back to that awful afternoon, when Principal F. showed up at my house. And I thought about Forrest and how he got dragged into the mess. I cried after everyone left and promised my parents I'd follow the rules. Au revoir, Pink Locker Society.

“I do remember all that, but I think things have changed,” Kate said. “We were caught completely off-guard. Now we know what we're doing—and who our friends are.”

Kate eyed Ms. Russo, who winked at her.

“Right. I say let the cookie crumble,” Piper said. “Just think of how things would be so much better. No more hiding in basements. Maybe we could get our old office back”

“Indeed. I must say I agree,” Ms. Russo said. “But it's entirely your decision.”

“Principal Finklestein could expel us—or worse,” I said. “Can't we at least try to catch the person?”

“Okay, Jem,” Piper said. “I guess we can give it one last try.”

Twenty-six

Since this was all my idea, I was given the first shift. I had to bring our pink laptop home so I could monitor the library's video surveillance for twenty-four hours. That meant Wednesday after school and all day Thursday. I watched that night until I fell asleep. All was dark and empty by the time evening came. I watched the school janitor make her rounds through the library, thinking for a minute that she was someone with the opportunity. But she touched nothing other than floors and trash cans. Then she turned out the lights and you couldn't see much at all. I doubted the bookmark bandit was sneaking in overnight, so I turned off the laptop and went to bed. Just FYI, watching an empty library on surveillance cam puts you to sleep faster than counting sheep.

I couldn't exactly monitor it during school hours. But I could during study hall since we were all just down in the basement for the PLS meeting anyway. The study hall shift—though the camera showed it was busy in the library—yielded nothing. I watched people take books off the shelf and put them back, but I had to watch with eagle eyes to note if they seemed to insert a bookmark in a book. It appeared no one did.

*   *   *

Kate was on for Thursday. She did as I did, doing what she could from home then checking during study hall. Again, she saw nothing of note. Piper agreed to watch over the weekend.

“This is excrutiatingly boring,” Piper said the following week during our PLS meeting. “I don't see how we can keep this up.”

Piper explained that she borrowed her mother's smart phone and figured out how to monitor the surveillance from it.

“My mother doesn't understand this phone anyway. It's really too much phone for her,” Piper said.

But even with the gift of mobile access, she didn't spot anything or anyone that could help us uncover the bookmark bandit. And if that person kept on spreading the word about the PLS, it would be only a matter of time before we were exposed and, in my opinion, finished for good.

I begged everyone for a few more days, which they granted reluctantly. By Wednesday, Piper wanted to end our failed stakeout.

“Do you really want me to stay home and watch the same boring footage of the library instead of going to the basketball games?” Piper asked.

Friday was the kickoff of the annual boys' basketball tournament. The Candy Cane Tournament, always held the week before Christmas, brought in teams from all over for three nights of basketball. School break was just days away and it was something we looked forward to. Everyone went and watched two games per evening—an approved reason to be out until eleven. We decorated our gym to support Margaret Simon Middle School.
Go Patriots!
Then we spent three nights rooting for them and sitting high in the bleachers in clusters of friends. And boyfriends.

I could not believe Forrest and I had been “dating” for more than a month. Though I had the recent kiss to cling to, our one-month anniversary went by unnoticed. Piper and Kate asked if he got me anything, but I told them that we both thought one-month anniversaries were stupid. I learned that this was the wrong thing to say because Piper and Kate routinely marked these on their calendars and celebrated them with their boyfriends. Now, Christmas loomed. What would I say to explain why Forrest and I didn't exchange gifts—that we thought celebrating Christmas was stupid?

My mom took me, Kate, and Piper to the school gym for the first night of the tournament. We walked in and admired the decorations we had contributed to the decked-out gym. We made giant candy canes to represent each player. We painted them red and white and then used glue and glitter to emblazon the player's number on the candy cane. We cracked ourselves up wondering if the other team would really be intimidated by the thought of facing a team of jumbo peppermint sticks.

“How would a candy cane dribble the ball or shoot?” I wondered aloud.

“I do believe you're underestimating the power of mint, Jemma,” Piper said. We laughed so hard, we kind of stumbled into school, three astride.

In the lobby, the school's Christmas tree stood proud in twinkle lights, regular-size candy canes, and basketball ornaments. Forrest wasn't there yet, but Brett was, so Kate ran off to sit with him. Piper was momentarily boyfriend-less, though Dylan would be there as soon as his hockey game was over.

Once we ascended to the top bleacher, our favorite spot, Piper turned to me.

“Jemma, do you and Forrest ever argue? Dylan drives me crazy sometimes.”

I knew there was a right answer to this question, but I didn't know what it was.

“No,” I said, after a moment's delay. “Not really.”

“That's good,” Piper said. “It's just weird. You never complain about him and he never complains about you. You're, like, one of the most together couples I've ever met. In eighth grade anyway.”

It was a compliment, I knew. But I couldn't take it.

“It's all good,” I said, my fallback line.

But just as Piper was praising our month-long relationship, I saw them. Forrest was walking into the gym with Lauren and Charlotte, the Bouchard twins. They were stunningly beautiful twins and each one had him by the arm, like gorgeous bookends with Forrest in between. Forrest was smiling and leaned in close to hear something Lauren said. Or was it Charlotte? From where I sat, I couldn't tell the difference.

I don't know what hit me first. Was it worry that Forrest would soon break up with me to date one of them? Or it might have been anger—anger that he'd so openly flirt with two girls when I was sitting in the very same gymnasium, where I had saved him a seat next to me.

I tried to look away, but kept on staring. I hardly noticed when Kate and Brett sat down in front of me.

“Popcorn?” Kate asked, tilting the cone my way.

When I didn't respond, her eyes followed my gaze to the floor of the gym, where Forrest still stood with both twins. I panicked when I saw all three of them start climbing the bleachers.

He can't be bringing them up here, can he?

My heart lurched again when I realized he wasn't bringing the Bouchard sisters up to where I was sitting. He stopped eight rows below me and the girls sat down on either side of him. I was actually, at that moment, more angry at them than Forrest. Forrest knew we were only in a pretend relationship. But Lauren and Charlotte, on the other hand, knew Forrest had a girlfriend.

I tried to keep my eyes focused on the basketball court, but I mostly watched them. Kate said nothing and I silently thanked her for not drawing attention to the situation. But ten minutes into the game, Piper noticed.

“What the heck, Jem? Why is Forrest down there with the sisty uglers?” It was her flip-flopped term for ugly sisters.

“They're not ugly, Piper,” I said.

“Whatever—just trying to make you feel better, girlie. What's the deal down there? Did I speak too soon? Maybe your first fight will be tonight?”

“I don't want to make a scene. They're friends. He can have friends who are girls,” I said, faking maturity.

“I know those girls, Jemma. They don't want to be his friends.”

I knew it, too.

At halftime, I walked right by, wanting him to see me. He tugged on the sleeve of my sweater. I gave a tight smile to Clem Caritas, who had chosen to join Forrest and his twin girlfriends.

“Hey Jemma, where have you been?” Forrest asked.

“Right behind you, Forrest,” I said in an icy tone, and kept on descending the bleachers.

As I passed by them, I had the weird urge to rip down the man-sized candy cane I had painted with the glittery 43 on its back. But then I thought, what did #43 ever do to me? I used the bathroom time to collect my thoughts. I gathered my courage to tell Forrest how this was just unacceptable. I would tell him, not as his girlfriend, but as a friend, that he had hurt my feelings. Who couldn't see how embarrassing this was for me?

But as I took a deep breath and re-entered the gym, Piper caught me.

“Hey, you. Someone's in the library.”

Twenty-seven

Out in the lobby, Kate was waiting for Piper and me. As we walked toward the library, down dark hallways, Piper explained that she never would have checked the library video cameras if Forrest hadn't upset me so.

“I was trying to think of a way to cheer you up, distract you,” Piper said.

Before we took off in the library direction, she showed us what she saw on her mother's phone. A small figure working in the dim light of the library with a handful of floppy bookmarks in her left hand.

“Wait,” I said. “What are we going to do when we get there?”

“Catch the person,” Piper said.

“Jem's right, Piper. It's not like we can arrest whoever it is,” Kate said.

“And we can't tell Principal F. That would kind of defeat the purpose,” I said.

There we stood outside the closed doors of the library. But we could see inside that there was dim light—was it candlelight?—coming from within the tall shelves.

“You wanted to catch this person and now she is right behind these doors,” Piper whispered. “Let's go.”

Piper tugged on the door, which made a loud thud as she pulled on it. The bookmark bandit would surely be startled by the noise. We squinted as we looked into the window beside the library doors. The flickering light moved quickly in the direction of Mrs. Kelbrock's office. Kate silently pointed toward the end of the hall and we all quietly race-walked to Mrs. Kelbrock's office door. Her office could be accessed from inside the library or from the hallway.

In the hallway, red EXIT signs illuminated long corridors of dusky gray-black. We rounded the corner and faced Mrs. Kelbrock's office. A sliver of light shone along the floor beneath the door. My heart was thump-thumping in my chest and my mind ran away with itself. I started thinking anyone could be in there—a green-faced monster, an ax murderer, Principal F. himself.

Then the light under the door clicked off. The sliver of light disappeared and we were left in the clinging darkness. Again, my mind raced in crazy directions. How much time had passed? What if the game had ended and my mother was sitting alongside the curb outside of school right now, waiting for me?

It was Piper who reached for the doorknob. I grabbed the back of her sweater but she kept moving forward. She turned the knob slowly and inch by inch pushed open the door. Mrs. Kelbrock's office was small but cheerful, decorated with posters that said things like “Read your heart out!” and “Readers become thinkers.” But in the dark, we could see none of that, just the greenish glow of her computer's screensaver.

“We know you're here,” Kate said in a wavering voice.

“Come out now and we won't call the police,” Piper said.

I looked at Piper and saw her shrug her shoulders as if to say, “It's all I could think of.”

The room was perfectly still and quiet, but inside the library, we saw a tiny flicker of light. What if this person had a candle and, because of our pursuit, he or she dropped it and burned down the whole school?

We moved quickly through Mrs. Kelbrock's office and into the library, where we tracked the flickering light to the reference section. Then we heard footsteps and the light moved to nonfiction, where I knew the Dewey decimal numbers went from 000 (generalities) to 900 (geography).

“Just give up already,” Piper said.

That made the footsteps and light move even quicker than before. I thought I heard a word or just a whimper. Then we watched the back of a figure return to Mrs. Kelbrock's office. We scurried behind and, again, saw nothing in the office. But Kate pointed to the floor and we saw it. A faint light was coming from under Mrs. Kelbrock's desk. Piper ran her hand along the wall and found the switch. Immediately, the room was flooded in regular, school-day fluorescent light. We saw the toes of two pink sneakers peeking out from under the desk. It was a girl.

Kate leaned down under the desk and said, gently, “Oh my, Mimi.”

Kate extended her hand and helped Mimi Caritas get to her feet. She looked scared like she had been crying but now was just staring at us.

“I was just looking for a book,” she said in a quiet voice.

Piper knelt down where Mimi had been, under the desk, and pulled out a stack of anti-PLS bookmarks. “Stop the PLS,” “PLS = X-Rated,” and—a new one—“Pink STINKS.”

“Why are you doing this?” Piper asked.

“Did someone make you do this?” Kate asked.

Mimi said nothing.

I stood there trying to piece this together in a way that made sense. Mimi was the bookmark bandit. Sweet Mimi, who twirled in her tutu and helped me with the dishes?

“Guys, can you give me a minute alone with Mimi?”

Kate and Piper hesitated, then walked back into the empty library, leaving us together.

“Why don't you sit down?” I said, motioning toward Mrs. Kelbrock's green desk chair.

I felt like a police detective with my suspect. Mimi sat but wouldn't look at me. She was staring stiff-necked at her feet.