Too Cool for This School (22 page)

“Most people should take a multivitamin,” Lucia said.

Lucia was way too sensible.

“They’re leaving!” I said, crouching down a little.

“Let’s hide in this store,” Ava said, tugging on my arm.

Before I knew it, Ava tugged me inside a store that I’d never shopped in before. Bra Universe.

“We need to get out of here,” I said.

My mind flashed back to Todd opening up the underwear drawer. The last thing I needed was to be found in a bra store. I didn’t want people from my school to think I was obsessed with bras and panties. Because I wasn’t. I barely thought about that stuff. It embarrassed me.

“These are actually cute,” Lucia said, pointing to a
mannequin sporting a bright pink bra and panty set emblazoned with crystals.

“Stop pointing at that mannequin’s butt,” I whispered. I knew in my heart that going to the mall shouldn’t feel like this.

“They’ve been there for twenty minutes and they’re not buying anything,” Ava said.

“Maybe they haven’t found what they’re looking for,” Lucia said.

“No,” Ava said. “It’s like they’re just wasting time.”

Rachel took another huge bite off the top of her ice cream and slurped out a response. “Maybe they’re just hanging out.”

Ava scowled at Rachel. “Can you suck that thing more quietly? I don’t want to get thrown out.”

“Sure,” Rachel said, delicately pecking at the cone with her mouth.

Ava squished up her face in what appeared to be a mixture of confusion and disgust. It’s like I could read her mind.
Why would a guy want to hang out this long with Mint?

“Duck!” Lucia said. “They’re coming this way.”

I knew it. They were going to spot me in a bra store.

“Wait,” Lucia said. “They’re stopping.”

We all moved closer to the glass front wall of the store.

“They’re sitting down,” Lucia said. “Look! They’re taking off their shoes.”

“Gross,” Rachel said. “I’d never walk around the mall in just my socks. I bet all the floor grime would turn them black.”

“They’re putting on different shoes,” I said. From their backpacks, Jagger and Mint each pulled out another set of shoes.

“Those aren’t shoes,” Lucia said. “They’re roller skates.”

“You can’t wear those in here!” Ava said. “It’s against mall policy.”

“Maybe Alaskan malls don’t have those kinds of mall policies,” Rachel said.

“Maybe Alaska doesn’t even have malls,” I said.

“Even so,” Ava said. “Jagger should know better.” She stared on, looking concerned, and exhaled some huffy breaths. “They’re going to look like huge nerds if they try to roller-skate through the mall. I mean, don’t you think they’ll get caught by mall security?”

“Probably,” Rachel said, nibbling very quietly on the edge of her waffle cone.

“They might be able to escape mall security if they can skate fast enough to a door,” Lucia said.

“They’re pretty far away from a door,” I said.

“We should stop him,” Ava said.

When we decided to let Mint seek out her geek level and then destroy her, we’d never imagined that she’d drag Jagger down to dweeb status with her.

Ava started to bite her nails, which she never did. “He’s on the verge of becoming a complete loser! In public!”

I could tell Ava was reaching her breaking point, but I was still pretty surprised when she lunged toward the store’s entrance. Luckily, Lucia held her back.

“I don’t think you should do that,” Lucia said.

But it was worse than any of us realized. Ava looked completely out of her mind. Her eyes were huge and panicked and very focused on Jagger. Ava had lost it. Gone bonkers. Nuts. Insane. Unzipped. I guess I knew this was possible: Mint’s relationship with Jagger had driven Ava crazy.

“He could get accused of disturbing the peace. Or disorderly conduct. Aren’t those misdemeanors?” Ava asked, looking at Lucia.

“I think so,” Lucia said.

“That would go on his permanent record. My parents would never let me date somebody who’d committed crimes.”

If they committed a crime, odds were that Mint and Jagger would get busted. The mall crackdown had started a few months ago after Tuma and Bobby attempted to skateboard from store to store. One day, the mall was just a fun place you could go and act goofy without any consequences. But following the skateboard incident, where Tuma collided with a Seeing Eye dog and the person it was guiding, the shopping center had posted signs listing strict rules that could result in fines, penalties, and jail time. Roller-skating and skateboarding were among them.

Rachel took another bite of ice cream. “Does Mint even know how to skate?”

I nodded. “She’s been skating like a maniac for weeks.”

“Really?” Lucia asked. “At your house?”

“With Jagger,” I explained.

“How come you never told me about this?” Ava snapped.

And then it happened. Ava literally snapped. While I stayed ducked down behind the glass, Ava broke free from Lucia’s grip and raced out of the store. The last words I heard her say were, “You suck! You suck! You suck!”

But Ava didn’t get very far. She was barely out of Bra Universe when the loud music began to pound through the mall.

Do, do, do. Beep. Dun, dun, dun. Boop
.

And then something really crazy happened. A big group of at least twenty people arrived on roller skates. They wheeled right up the mall’s center court and formed a circle. And Jagger and Mint joined them. Then they started skating together. And lifting their arms up in unison.

“They’re dancing,” a woman standing next to us said.

Rachel and I wandered out of the store and stood next to Ava and Lucia. Soon everybody had wandered out of the stores.

“It’s a flash mob!” Rachel said.

Except for a video I’d seen on the Internet, I had never seen a flash mob before.

“They’re pretty good,” Lucia said. “Look at the dude in the red skates. He’s great at crossovers.”

The dude in the red skates
was
pretty good at doing crossovers. He picked up his right leg and crossed it in front of his left. Over and over. Making the turns look super easy. And Mint and Jagger were pretty good too. They could
skate forward and backward, and they seemed to know all the choreography.

“I feel like barfing,” Ava said. “And I haven’t even eaten in hours.”

“Mint must have practiced a ton,” Rachel said.

“Yeah,” Lucia said. “Look at her shoot-the-duck!”

I couldn’t believe what was happening in the mall’s courtyard. Mint was unrecognizable to me as she leaned forward, lowered herself to a crouching position, balanced herself over one foot, and slid her other foot out in front. When had she decided to learn to do that? In Alaska? In New Mexico? And how had she hooked up with this flash mob?

Before Mint arrived, my life had far fewer questions.

“It makes me sick to watch this,” Ava said. “I mean, these people are totally breaking the law and should get arrested.”

“I don’t think anyone’s getting arrested,” Lucia said. “It looks like mall security is keeping the skating zone clear.”

And they were.

“I think this is a PR move,” a man behind us said. “The mall has gotten so much bad press about reducing mall goers’ personal freedoms that they wanted to stage an event where people could express themselves.”

“Really?” Ava asked. “Where did you hear that?”

“My son is one of the skaters,” the man said. “He told me about it.”

“Who’s your son?” Lucia asked.

“Jagger Evenson,” the man said.

Ava’s mouth dropped open and she just stood there.

“He’s been practicing with his friend from Alaska,” he offered.

I thought it was pretty good that Mr. Evenson had referred to Mint as Jagger’s
friend
and not
girlfriend
. Lucia put her arm around Ava and gently redirected her stare to the skaters.

“We don’t have to watch the whole thing,” I said. It seemed wise to declare our spy operation over and just try to shop.

“She is so slick,” Ava said as Mint switched direction in unison with Jagger and they both began skating backward.

“Does Diego roller-skate?” Rachel asked me.

“Probably,” I said.

“Look! A news camera,” Lucia said, pointing to a local camera crew set up on the other side of the mall. What a terrible thing to see. Three weeks in Santa Fe and my weird cousin had managed to make it on television. Maybe this had been her intent the whole time. Show up to my ordinary town acting like a super nerd by braiding a belt to her head and knowing five million things about Alaska. And then find a way to get on the local news with my best friend’s crush. Maybe Mint was way more calculating than I realized. She certainly was a far better skater than I’d realized.

The flash-mob routine ended in a burst of energetic circle skating. All the mob people zoomed in a curve in front of me so fast that their mismatched outfits began to blur.

“We don’t have to watch the whole thing,” I repeated.

“Is that your mom?” Lucia asked me, pointing across the mall to a person near the camera crew.

It was!

She held her phone up and snapped several pictures. I couldn’t believe my mom had known that Mint was going to be in a flash mob at the mall and hadn’t told me. I couldn’t even trust her anymore.

Ava turned around and looked me right in the eye.

“You should feel so betrayed,” she said.

And she was right.

“Woot! Woot!” Mr. Evenson cheered as all the skaters came to a dramatic stop by lowering themselves to the mall’s floor.

As people began to disperse, I tried to keep my vision on Mint. She looked so thrilled. So free.

“Is she holding Jagger’s hand?” Ava asked, placing a hand over her mouth.

“Maybe they’re just helping each other up,” I said.

But they continued to keep their hands linked as they skated to a bench off to the side so they could change out of their skates.

“It totally looks like they’re going out,” Lucia said.

“Poor Diego,” Rachel said in a sad voice.

“Poor Diego?” Ava said, her voice tense with pain. “Poor me!”

21

Is it possible to live with somebody you no longer trust or like? Even for five days? I didn’t think so. After the flash-mob incident, I avoided Mint as if she was made of poison. During the hours that followed the catastrophe at the mall, where Mint wrecked Ava’s heart, every time my cousin entered a room, I left it. And at dinner that night, I ignored everything she said. And when I settled into bed that night, I scooted so far to the edge of the mattress that right before dawn, I fell right off my side of the bed and onto the floor.

“Are you okay?” Mint asked in a groggy and concerned voice.

Okay? OKAY? How could she not see that I basically hated her? In less than a month, she’d trashed my life. How could she be so selfish?

“Are you on the floor?” Mint asked.

Why couldn’t Mint give me back my life and just shut up?

“Are you mad at me?” Mint asked as I slowly crawled back into bed.

I didn’t say anything at first. I just slid between my sheets and listened to the silence.

“Lane?” Mint asked. “Are you hurt?”

I couldn’t believe she kept talking to me. Wasn’t it clear that I didn’t want to have a conversation? Mint was so clueless!

“Can’t you just shut up?” I asked, yawning.

And we didn’t say anything else the rest of the night.

Avoiding Angelina Mint Taravel became my only goal. I arose before dawn and collected my things and got ready in the living room. While my mom and dad gushed at breakfast about Mint’s roller-skating performance, I requested to eat my toast and eggs in the living room, underneath the light of our most powerful lamp, so I could finish my homework. On the bus, I read through my vocabulary list.
Adapt. Allegiance. Anguish. Awe
. Once we got to school, I ditched Mint and just sort of drifted all by myself.

Drift. Drift. Drift
. Except, when I got to my locker, something happened that made it impossible for me to drift anymore.
Mint. Mint. Mint
. Everyone was talking about her. And Jagger too. Not only were they the topic of every conversation, images of them kept popping up on everybody’s cell phones. I guess the footage had been featured on the
nightly news. And circulated. And posted on the Internet. As the youngest skaters in the flash mob, she and Jagger were now basically celebrities. They’d gone viral!