I shut down the computer and shoved back my chair. It was on wheels, so it rolled back several feet before ramming into the coffee table.
“Jane,” Mom warned from the kitchen.
“Sorry,” I said.
We went through this at least once a day, all because Mom refused to let me put the computer in my room. She did it for my own good, so that I wouldn’t become a raving sex maniac with the screen name “Foxxxie LaRue.” This, from my thirty-nine-year-old thong-wearing mother.
She walked barefoot into the den. “All done with your homework?” she asked.
“Didn’t have any,” I said. “But I found this awesome site called ‘jailbait.com.’ Grown-ups visit it, not just kids, and I can sign up to be penpals with someone in prison. That would be okay, right? I could, like, give back to the community.”
She sat on the worn sofa and patted the cushion beside her. “Come sit with me. Tell me about your day.”
I rose from the computer chair and joined her.
“So what’s new in Jane Land?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. She scooched over her legs, and I leaned against her. “Alicia’s trying out for cheerleading. She really, really, really wants to make it.”
“Do you think she will?”
“Um, that would be a big fat no, sadly enough.”
“Why not?”
“Because the more you want something, the less likely you are to get it. Anyway, she’s kind of a spaz.”
Mom stroked my hair. “Jane. You don’t truly believe that, do you?”
“I’m not saying it to be mean. She’s just not all that coordinated.”
“No, that you never get the things you want.”
I started to reply, then let my mind drift off as she traced circles on my scalp. It was like being little again, when she used to brush my hair after a bath. I’d smell like my special kid’s shampoo that came in the fish-shaped bottle, and after the tangles had been combed out, Dad would wrap me in a hug and call me his mango-tango baby.
Mom kept caressing. After several minutes, she said, “Phil called, by the way. He didn’t leave a message. He said it wasn’t important.”
“Okay,” I said. Phil was my best boy bud. My safety date, not that I ever went on dates with him or anyone else. He’d kind of had a crush on me since we met in seventh grade—he tutored me in science for extra credit—but the good thing about Phil was that we could go on being friends and never really deal with it. I knew Phil would always be there for me.
“And your dad called,” Mom continued. “He was sorry he missed you.” Her fingers slowed in my hair. “He’s flying to Zimbabwe tomorrow. He’s going to stay in a thatched hut.”
“Great,” I said.
“Jane …”
“Mom.”
She sighed. Now it was her turn not to reply.
I stared at the ceiling with its spiderweb of cracks. I listened to our breaths. Finally, I pushed myself up.
“Guess I better go to bed,” I said.
Mom smiled up at me, although her eyes were sad. “Love you, Jane,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Love you, too.”
Upstairs, I pulled the teddy bear from my backpack. I stroked its fur, then lightly touched its nose.
It wasn’t true, what Alicia had said about Dad. I didn’t feel
In the middle of the night, my eyes flew open. A dream, or a corner of one, had jerked me from sleep. Something about cheerleading. Something about a boy. A boy in a raincoat.
Crap. It was Henry Huggins. Henry Huggins, from the Ramona books. He was Beezus’s friend, the one with the paper route and the dog named Ribsy. And when Ramona was in kindergarten, he was the traffic boy that helped her cross the street. One stormy day she trudged into a muddy construction site and got stuck, and Henry lifted her straight out of her boots to safety.
The next day, Bitsy approached me at my locker. She wore a plaid micro-mini and a white Oxford with the sleeves rolled up. Her white knee socks were scrunched around her ankles, and on her feet she wore clunky Doc Martens. Her hair was tied back in doggy-ears.
“Hello, luv,” she said.
My head jerked up, and I dropped my math spiral.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” she said. “Can’t a girl say hello?”
I bent to retrieve my notebook, cheeks burning. Chatting with Mary Bryan was one thing—and far weird enough to last for several days. But Bitsy? Bitsy was a junior, a full two years older than me. And she was British. She used expressions like “brilliant” and “pet” and “you stupid cow.”
“Mary Bryan
“It’s not a done deal, of course,” she said. “We do have to test you.”
“You do?” I felt like I was going to faint. I had no clue what she was talking about.
Bitsy tilted her head. “We’re extremely selective, pet. We have to be. But we think you’re the one.”
The one
I ate lunch in the library. Me and Ramona, age eight. This was the one in which Ramona accidentally broke an egg in her hair and got called a nuisance by her teacher, and as I turned the page, my heart went out to her. My heart did not go out to Alicia, and if she wondered why I wasn’t in the cafeteria, it served her right. She could find someone else to eat with today. Like one of the feral cats, and she could go on and on to it about pikes and herkies and toe-touch jumps. I was just fine with Ramona, thanks very much.
A throat-clearing noise broke my concentration. I looked up, and there was Keisha. A senior. My heart started hammering.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I managed.
She gazed at me with her celery-colored eyes. Contacts, I was pretty sure, although some black people have green eyes. But I’d never seen anyone, black or white, with eyes that shade.
“Me and Mary Bryan and Bitsy, we hang together, right?” she said. “We’re tight. Like sisters.”
I nodded. My throat was dry.
“But we’ve got room for one more,” she said. “A freshman.”
I tried to keep my face blank, but my insides were knotting up because I had no idea what Keisha wanted from me. She wasn’t smiling. In fact, she seemed pissed. But why would she be pissed at me? This was the first time I’d ever spoken to her.
She pressed her lips together. “So Friday you’ll go to Kyle’s party with us. We’ll see how you fit in.”
My stomach dropped. So did my book.
“Kyle … Kelley?” I asked.
She frowned, like
“Rae!” Alicia called. She rapped hard on the bathroom door to be heard over the shower. “Jane’s here. We want to talk to you.”
“What?” Rae said.
“We need to talk to you!” Alicia said.
“I’m in the shower! I’m doing a mayonnaise rinse!”
Alicia scowled. “Come on,” she said to me, marching down the hall. In her room, she flopped onto her bed, leaving me the option of the floor or the padded stool pushed under her vanity. I chose the floor.
“So … how was cheerleading practice?” I asked.
“Terrible,” she said. “My voice cracked in the middle of ‘Our Team Is Red Hot.’”
“Oh. Well, I bet no one noticed.”
“Yeah, right. If you’d been there at lunch, you could have helped me practice—”
“In the cafeteria? With everyone watching?”
“—but noooo, you had to pull one of your stupid disappearing tricks because you were being a pouty-pants. I really could have used your support, you know. You’re the only person who knows how important this is to me.”