Caught in the Web (11 page)

The Far Hills Junior High School parking lot was a madhouse.

One kid dressed up as a giant eyeball in a tuxedo almost fell over and someone had to lead him into the main doors. Madison saw witches, werewolves, and about four ninjas. Egg would be mad about that. He was hoping to be one of a kind. There were hockey players, ghosts, and pop singers. One group of friends had all dressed like an alien family.

Even teachers and chaperones were costumed. Madison chuckled when she saw her substitute science teacher show up as none other than Frankenstein himself—bolts and all.

“Have a great time,” Dad said, leaning out the window of the car to kiss his daughter good-bye.

“Okay, Dad.” Madison waved him off. “Okay. Bye.”

“We’ll have dinner when I get back from Boston.”

“Okay, Dad,” Madison repeated, backing away from his car. “Have a nice trip.”

Madison stumbled up the curb. She was the one having the nice trip.

“Be careful,” Dad said, pulling away. “And don’t forget to have fun!”

Madison wiggled inside her caftan and adjusted her crown. She took a deep breath and walked carefully into the school lobby.

“You’re here!” Aimee squealed. She twirled over in her ballerina outfit, followed by her brother Roger.

“You look sooooo good,” Aimee said. “Who did your hair like that?”

“Mom,” Madison mumbled. “You look good, too. Where’s Fiona?”

“She’s not here yet,” Aimee said.

“Hey, Roger,” Madison said to Aimee’s brother. “You’re a chaperone?”

“Yup. That’s me. You’ve got a nice costume,” he added. “Roman goddess of the Halloween dance, eh?”

Madison blushed under her blush. Roger smiled back.

“Hello, all,” Fiona said, walking in the front door. She had on a Hawaiian shirt plus a grass skirt and about ten plastic leis around her neck. Chet was standing behind her on the way in, but he didn’t stick around. He just stuck his hand up for a quick wave and dashed into the gym.

“Who’s Chet supposed to be?” Aimee asked.

“A martian.” Fiona laughed. “What else? Didn’t you see those little bobbling antenna things on his head?”

The school had a security guard posted at the doorway to the school and again to the cafeteria and gym. They wanted to be careful to check students’ bags to make sure no one brought anything inside they weren’t supposed to bring.

Madison (a.k.a. Aphrodite), Aimee (a.k.a. Ballerina), and Fiona (a.k.a. Hula Girl) approached the doors to the gym, bristling with excitement. Over by the music booth, Madison saw Mrs. Wing dressed for a masquerade ball. She wore a purple dress and a paper mask that just covered her eyes with purple feathers. Standing next to Mrs. Wing was a man in a rubber mask and doctor’s scrubs. Madison assumed he was Mr. Wing.

“This is one of my students,” she said to her husband as Madison walked over. “This is Madison Finn and—you’re Fiona and Aimee, right? I’d like you to meet my husband. Dr. Bryan Wing.”

“Who are you supposed to be?” Aimee asked Dr. Wing.

Everyone laughed when he said, “Wolf-Doctor.”

“Have a nice time tonight, Madison,” Mrs. Wing said. “See you around.”

“All our decorations look so cool,” Aimee said, whirling in her ballet slippers as they walked into the main part of the gymnasium. “The balloons look good, and that web in the corner really came out nice, Maddie.”

“Yeah, even though I fell in it,” Madison grumbled.

“It’s Egg and Drew!” Fiona pointed across the gym. Egg was in his best ninja gear. Drew had on jeans and a Mets baseball shirt.

“You call that a real costume?” Aimee said to Drew.

“It’s a costume if I say it’s a costume,” Drew said. “What’s your costume, Maddie?”

“Yeah, who are you, Maddie?” Egg asked. “Queen of the World?”

“Shut up, Egg. You’re only like the tenth ninja I’ve seen tonight,” Madison said.

Madison noticed that he seemed unusually interested in Fiona’s grass skirt. “Can you see through that thing?” he asked her. Fiona giggled.

Aimee rolled her eyes at Madison and whispered, “He’s such a geek sometimes.”

“Hart!”
Drew yelled across the gym to his cousin.
“Over here!”

Madison felt her legs get weak.
Hart?
He was on his way over.

“Yo!” Hart gave all the guys high fives. He was dressed up like a wizard, just like he said he would be. He looked even better than he had looked when he played the Wizard in
The Wiz
at school.

Hart told Aimee he liked her costume, and she twirled around for him. He smiled at Madison, too, but didn’t say anything more than, “Hey, Finnster,” just like always. He got distracted when some ninth-grade DJ turned on the music.

“I’m hungry,” Hart said.

“Yeah, let’s go check out the food,” Egg said.

“See you guys later,” Drew said. The boys walked away together toward the snack table.

Madison clutched her papier-mâché scepter tight. Hart hadn’t said anything about
her
costume. She had this weird, empty feeling inside. Everyone else said she looked beautiful. Why hadn’t
he
noticed?

“Let’s go dance.” Fiona goofed around, moving her hula-skirted hips to the music.

Aimee grabbed her arm. “We can’t dance
yet.
It’s too early.”

“What?” Madison said. “Who says it’s too early?”

“Trust me, it is. Let’s just stand here for a while. See? Kids are still walking in. You have to act mellow at first. Then you dance.”

Madison usually didn’t question Aimee’s logic on such matters.

“Look!”
Aimee blurted. She was staring at the door to the gym.

Poison Ivy Daly walked through. She had on a red leotard, red tights, red skirt, red shoes, and red scarf, and she had attached a red tail to her behind and red horns to her head.

“She’s a devil!” Aimee snorted. “No way. I can’t believe she would come dressed like that.”

“Me neither,” Fiona said, slack jawed.

Madison
could
believe it. The leotard and tights accentuated Ivy’s thin body, and everyone stared. She was followed into the room by her drones, Rose and Joanie, who had on boring outfits and too much makeup. They were supposed to be backup singers, according to Aimee. She’d heard them talking about their costumes the day before.

Ivy scanned the room, but she didn’t see Madison, Aimee, or Fiona. She did, however, see Hart right away and walked toward the food table.

Madison watched her parade across the Halloween dance floor along with every boy in the room—even eighth and ninth graders. All eyes were on her, just the way Ivy wanted it.

“Just forget her, Maddie. Let’s stand in the center of the room,” Aimee suggested.

From the center of the room, Madison had a better view of the food table and Hart. She saw Ivy standing near him. At one point he even reached up and touched the horns on the top of her head. No one was really dancing yet, either, just like Aimee had said. There was an unspoken code about what to do and not to do here. Every moment counted.

Eat. Talk. Be seen.

Dance later.

Madison saw another one of her friends from class, Lindsay Frost, across the room. Lindsay was dressed all in black and was holding her mask by her side. She’d come to the dance as a gorilla. Madison wanted to go say hello, but for some reason she didn’t. Lindsay was over near the wall, talking to some boys Madison didn’t really know too well.

Girls and boys were segregated everywhere you looked, chatting among themselves. Kids were split into cliques and grades. Madison didn’t even recognize half the people in the room. Of course, almost everyone was in costume.

Aimee’s brother Roger had been right. This was initiation night. Big time.

“Attention, please,” a voice crackled over the loudspeaker. “Welcome to the Halloween dance.”

One boy made a fart noise and some other boys cheered.

Señora Diaz stood up on the podium. She was the voice behind the microphone. Madison couldn’t see Egg from where she was standing, but she imagined he was squirming in his shoes right about now. He got so embarrassed whenever he and his mother were at the same school events.

“As you know,” Señora continued, “we have lots of activities going on this evening. And many helpful people here making sure the dance goes well. Please give a round of applause for your family and teachers who have come out to help us tonight—dressed in costumes, no less.”

Kids in the room clapped loudly.

“And to the seventh-grade students on the dance committee who helped with the very important decoration and food and music. Let’s give them a round of applause. …”

Someone whistled. The clapping got louder. Even the eighth and ninth graders were clapping thank-you.

“Gracias!”
Señora’s voice continued. “Now, we have a line forming for the scary hallway at the far end of the gym. If possible, let’s keep the screaming contained to that area tonight,
sí?
We’d like everyone to have a chance inside at least once, so please don’t get out and get right back on line. Finally, some eighth and ninth graders will be judging seventh graders in a costume contest throughout the night. Everyone have a
great time!”

The clapping started up again. So did the music.

“
I love this song!”
Aimee shrieked. It was hip-hop. She started bending and twisting her body to the music.

“Aimee, you said not to dance yet,” Madison said.

“Yeah, but that was like ten minutes ago. It’s fine now.”

“Yeah!” Fiona shrugged and swiveled in her grass skirt again.

Music pounded over the speakers. A few teachers grimaced at the noise, but it kept right on blaring.

Madison bounced up and down, up and down, from her knees only. She couldn’t do much more since the caftan didn’t allow for a lot of movement. She straightened out her crown and waved her arm into the air once in a while.

Just like that, Aphrodite was dancing.

C
HET RAN OVER TO
Fiona on the dance floor, whispering something. He was laughing hysterically. Fiona motioned to Aimee and Madison to walk over to the food table.

“Chet says Tommy Kwong put something in the food,” Fiona said. “Let’s go see for ourselves.”

Floating in the giant fruit punch bowl were plastic flies. Even funnier than the floating flies was the fact that Tommy himself was dressed up like some kind of a bug, wearing a hat with pipe-cleaner and pom-pom antennae on top.

“Hey, Finnster!” Hart came up from behind and nearly scared the crown off Madison. “What’s up?”

“Oh! Hart, hey,” Madison said. She turned sideways in the caftan and almost lost her balance. “Whoa!”

Hart grabbed her elbow.

“Thanks. This dress is so long, you know, it’s hard to …” Madison’s voice drifted off.

“Cool costume. Who are you supposed to be?” Hart asked, adjusting his own wizard cap.

“Um … well …” Madison thought for a moment. He’d noticed her outfit finally, but she couldn’t very well tell the crush of her life that she was Aphrodite, goddess of love. And she didn’t have a backup answer.

“I know!” Hart suddenly said. “You’re like a walking Greek myth.”

“Well, I’m a Roman or Greek mythical character,” Madison said politely. “Take your pick.”

“Hercules!” he joked.

“Umm … I don’t think so,” Madison said.

“What’s that thing?” Hart pointed to her neck.

Madison reached up and felt her neck. She was sweating. A bead of sweat was trickling down her back. Of course, Hart hadn’t been pointing to sweat. He was talking about her necklace.

“Is it real gold?” he asked.

Madison chuckled.
“Not.
My mom got it from some movie friend of hers. Sometimes it’s pretty convenient having a mom who has access to weird things like costume jewelry. You know?”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t really wear jewelry.”

He laughed and Madison squirmed a little.

“Maddie!” Aimee skipped over toward them. “We have to dance to this song. Hart, get Egg and Drew to come dance.”

Pretty soon, Aimee, Fiona, Madison, Hart, Egg, Chet, and Drew were out on the dance floor along with dozens of other Far Hills students. Everyone was twisting and shaking together.

It was one of those songs where everyone is supposed to do the same motions at the same time. During a slower part in the song, everyone sinks down, down, down to the floor and then jumps back up again.

Madison was bouncing in her caftan and waving her arms like before. She lifted the bottom of her dress up a little so she could move her legs more during the song’s faster parts. It was hard doing everything at the same time, though. Right next to her, Hart moved up and down to the rhythm the best he could, too.

Madison could not believe that she was dancing right next to Hart Jones.

He was so cute!

After a while, the music slowed down and everyone started to sink toward the floor. Madison followed along, happy for the slowed-down pace. She listened close because she knew that in the next part of the song, everyone was supposed to get back up again.

Madison believed with all her heart that if she jumped up at the perfect, timed moment, Hart would be impressed.

The music pumped a steady beat. Madison held her breath and then …

Jump!

She jumped up so fast—and didn’t trip on the hem of her long caftan!

The only problem was that when she jumped, no one else did.

She stood there, upright, staring down at an ocean of costumed faces. Everyone stared back. Hart stared back. Three seconds went by.

It felt like slo-mo eternity.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Some kid across the room screamed as he leaped into the air on the proper beat. Everyone was knocking around and shaking bodies upright again. Aimee spun in a few twirls.

Madison felt hot all over. She stopped dancing right then and there—and made a beeline for the punch with flies.

Ivy was standing there next to the drink table. “Like your costume, Madison,” she said when Madison sped over, breathless.

Madison didn’t believe her, of course. “Yeah—you too,” Madison said.

“I made my costume, you know,” Ivy bragged. “I figured that being a devil was fun, so I sewed this together.” She was talking about the teeny skirt wrapped around her waist.