How to Break a Heart (17 page)

While motives surrounding last week’s school intrusion and broken window remain unclear,
school hero
key witness
Nick Wainwright
, who bravely chased the perpetrator down the hall,
came forward with additional details about
this vicious crime.
the incident.

According to Wainwright, the
The criminal
suspect
appeared to be male, and in his teens, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Though no estimate of his height was given,
Wainwright described the suspect as tall, with a thin build. He wore
loose-fitting clothes,
a pair of
baggy
jeans and a blue
hoodie
sweatshirt with a hood.
Wainwright added that the suspect “looked dangerous.”
Which seems very true, as it’s known that Abe Mahal and Patrick Hennessey ran cowardly from the scene.

School officials were approached for comment multiple times, but are at this point uncooperative and unwilling to provide additional details about the incident. Further information and/or reports of suspicious activity can heretofore be reported to Sirina Fein.

IN OTHER NEWS…

Trust-Fall Injuries on the Rise

Following reports of increasing injuries, school officials have banned the practice of the trust fall, a traditional bonding experience in which a student falls backward into the arms of fellow pupils. While wrist injuries have historically been associated with this common team-building exercise, school nurses have seen an alarming surge of knee and shoulder injuries from students who mistakenly fall forward. Peer mentors, who rely on the trust fall for
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yo sonrío
tú sonríes
ella sonríe
nosotros sonreímos
ellos sonríen

“T
ell me you’re just messing with me,” Thad is saying. I’m sitting on a bench; he’s been balancing on his skateboard in front of me, hands in his pockets, but now steps one foot off and steadies himself.

“Well, I tried your plan, but it didn’t work.”

“You tried to make him jealous?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I flirted. With
boys
.”

He looks at me like he wants to laugh, then sits down at the far end of the bench.

“Okay, so maybe I’m out of practice,” I say. “Anyway, it backfired. Every time he tried to find me, I guess I was too busy trying to flirt. It just kept him away.”

“And so you just ditched the plan and wrote another story about him? ’Cause that’s what it is, Collins. It’s a story.”

“It’s not about
him
, it’s about the window.”

“I bet you made it into another Nickfest.”

“Um,
hello
? He’s the key witness. And we need the information. Sirina’s going to die if we don’t win that YoJo.”

“Would you stop with the article? Nick’s just using you to make himself look good, Collins. What’s the big deal about a broken window anyway? It’s not like a government conspiracy.”

“But that’s the thing. It could be a
school
conspiracy,” I say.

“Oh, right,” he says. “The infamous Hubert C. Frost Middle School conspiracy. Come on, Collins, be real. I’m sure there are better things to write about.”

“In this town? Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know, important things.” He shrugs and looks away. “Or unfair things. There are lots of things that are unfair.”

He starts to get that jumpiness that he sometimes gets, like when he was talking about his dad. He picks at the seam of his skating gloves. He wiggles his foot so fast that he has one of those personal seismic events of his.

I decide to save him from it. “What?” I smirk. “Like the fact that the Macho Nacho charges an extra fifty cents for black beans?”

“Yeah, that’s a good start,” he says, half smiling.

“Or maybe that there’s a stolen Princess Leia figurine out there somewhere?” I snort. “I bet it was Princess Leia.”

“Fine, Princess Leia.” He stands up. “Come on.”

I stay seated. “Where are we going?”

He pulls me off the bench. “We’re getting you some practice.”

He starts steering me to the overlook. We get to the rail and he surveys the food court below. “Okay, that one, that one, or that one?” Thad asks, pointing his finger at different guys below. “If you could go out with any of those chumps, which chump would it be?”

“None of them,” I say.

The truth is, the only chump I want is Nick. And—
Wait!
He’s not a chump at all.

Thad hangs his head in disgust. “I knew it. Okay, I
really hate
that we have to do this,” he says with mock sympathy, “but let’s pretend Nick is on
La Vida Rica
.” Only he says
La Vida Rica
with a ridiculous accent, trilling the
R
, so I know he’s making fun of it. “Give him a role. What would he be?”

I try to imagine it. I give Nick a little more height, a few muscles. And then I remove his shirt and put him outside somewhere. A beach.
La playa.

“He’s a lifeguard,” I say. “He just saved a life. A little boy named Juanito.”

“Okay, so Juanito is swimming around in the ocean, and let’s say Nick sees a shark. So he dives in and saves the kid from the shark.”

I smile.
La Playa Peligrosa.
A telenovela set on a dangerous cliffside beach. I could get into that.

“Except here’s the thing, Collins. The good news is that he saves the kid’s life, but the bad news is that he gets chomped by the shark himself. He’s swimming to shore with only one leg. And, yada, yada, yada, throw in a few episodes so we can see him writhing around, and finally, boom! He’s dead.”

Stop! Stop!

“Okay, I get it,” I say, trying to be cool about it. “Nick’s not here. That’s all you had to say.”

“So, now that that’s settled and Nick’s out of the picture, which chump would you want?”

I huff. And look at the selection of boys. They all seem so scrawny and unheroic next to Nick, especially in that lifeguard scene—
my
lifeguard scene, not Thad’s. But finally I focus in on one guy who has nice shoulders and brown hair, and there is nothing too upsetting about the arrangement of his facial features. “The one in the gray shirt.”

“Okay. Target identified. Now go get his attention.”

“Okay, how?”

“Well, first, maybe lighten up a little.”

Easy for him to say! He hasn’t lost the love of his life! But then I remember his dad, and feel immediately awful.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay, I’ll try.”

“Start by maybe smiling.”

“Okay. Like, what kind of smile?”

He throws his palms up. “What do you mean, ‘what kind of smile?’ How many kinds are there?”

“A hundred and twenty-six, I think.”

“A hundred and twenty-six!?”
Thad laughs. “You’re crazy.”

“No, there’s actually scientific research. And think about it: Let’s see. There’s the Carmela smile—the way she’d smile at her baby before Hilda stole him; or the ghost-of-Arabela smile, which is kind of sad; or the Cristina smile, not that she’s smiled much since Luis was kidnapped; or the—”

“Stop. Just stop. The Mariela smile, I guess. I’m sure she has one.”

The Mariela smile. So
sultry
! So
torrid
!
Am I even brave enough?
“Are you sure?”

“Let me see it.”

“
What?
No!”

“Come on!”

“No
way
!”

“You’re chicken.”

I am. But I say, “I am
not
!”

“So let’s see.”

I study him. “You won’t make fun of me?”

“Who, me?” he jokes. “Okay, I promise. I won’t.”

So I take a deep breath and turn forward, away from him. I close my eyes and try to summon Mariela. The vixen. There’s a lift to the left corner of her mouth. Her eyebrows stay steady. Her eyes could start a fire. Okay, okay, I think I’ve got it.

So I turn my head with my Mariela smile oozing onto my face.

And cause Thad to have a conniption. He laughs so hard that a sputter of snot bursts out of his nose.

“You said you weren’t going to make fun of me!”

“I—”
Guffaw. Guffaw.
“I know! I’m not—” Hyena laugh. Coyote laugh. “Making fun of you!”

I stand up and grab my purse, but Thad jumps up and clutches the corner of my sleeve. “I’m sorry!” He is still recovering. There are tears in his eyes. Of course. The insensitive wretch.

I ask, “Are you done with your animal sounds?”

“Animal sounds?”

“YOU SOUND LIKE A MOUNTAIN ANIMAL!”

Another laugh tries to escape his measly little body, but he catches it before it does. “Okay, Collins, I’m really sorry.”

It actually sounds like he means it.

We stand for a second in silence, my arms crossed over my chest, him rubbing the back of his neck and having the decency to hold his laugh in.

Finally, I ask, “Was it really that bad?”

After a minute, he says, “Kind of, yeah.”

“Oh. How bad?”

He breathes in and looks up. “Hmm. Well, you looked like—I don’t know—I’d have to go with a half-asleep fire-breathing dragon.”

“What!?”
I cry out, but then I can’t help it. Even though I’m slightly fuming, like an actual dragon might, I break into a laugh. “You are so ridiculous!”

He doesn’t say anything. Just stares at me with a halfhearted smile.

“What?” I ask.

He looks away and shakes his head.

“What!?”
I say again, frustrated.

He glances back at me. “Nothing.” But then he looks at his shoes. “I was just thinking. You know, maybe your real smile is good enough.”

Good enough?
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I think it’s fine.”

He turns and I see the tips of his ears are pink. Oh. My. Gosh. Thad was being sweet. I’m not exactly sure how to handle this.

But I don’t have to, because he says, “Well, go on. Your target awaits.”

“Do I really—?”

“Go, or I will lean over the rail here and start announcing to everyone in the food court that you’ve been dumped nineteen times. And the last one was done by someone’s mother.” He looks at me. Walks to the rail. And takes a deep breath in.

“I’m going, you nut job!” I say, and speed-walk to the escalator.

I turn around. He’s watching.

I get on the escalator and look up. He’s still watching.

I wait for a bolt of lightning to hit me or something, but all that happens is that my feet land on the food court floor. I look up and see Thad riding the escalator after me. He points his fingers to his eyes and then right at me to let me know he’s watching.

I feel my heart beating in my chest.
Mariela powers activate!

I walk toward the Cinnabon, where my target is. Now that I can get a better look at him, I’m even less sure about this. I watch him compress his Cinnabon into a dense patty and shove it into his mouth.

Um. No.

I look back toward the escalator, but there’s no sign of Thad. I wonder if I can just bail.

But.

I take two steps in the direction of the nearest exit and hear from behind me, “Going somewhere?” A hand is laid on my shoulder and I freeze.

“Thad, don’t make me…” I start.

He steers me in the direction of my target. I try to twist my way out of the path, but it’s harder than it should be.

“Hi,” Thad says as we approach the very stunned gray-shirted guy. Whose lips are coated with cinnamon sauce. “My friend here wanted to meet you.”

I try not to act embarrassed. This, of all things, wouldn’t embarrass Mariela. This is child’s play.

“Oh. Hi,” the guy says. “What’s your name?”

I look at Thad. He widens his eyes and gives me a teeny, tiny nod to coax me on.

“Mariela,” I say, and smile in a way that I hope isn’t too dragonlike.

“Oh,” he says. “My name’s Eric.”

“Enchanted to meet you,” I say.

But then Eric asks me if I want to hear a riddle.