Miss Matched (5 page)

“Your
what
?” said Fiona.

“Let's not make a big deal out of it,” said Mrs. Miltenberger.

“Who's your date?” Fiona asked.

Max pulled his goggles off his head. “Yeah, who?”

Mrs. Miltenberger straightened a stack of magazines on the coffee table. “I don't know. The Broads fixed me up with him.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I don't know why in tarnation I ever agreed to this.” She shook her head and waved her hands. “Anyway, since your father is working at the station tonight, I've arranged for a babysitter—sorry, I mean
watcher
—for you.”

When she was in second grade, Fiona decided that she did not like the word “babysitter” when it had anything to do with her. After all, she no longer considered herself to be a
baby
, and she did not ever wish to be
sat
. Instead, Fiona thought “watcher” was a more acceptable word. The watcher could watch Fiona and Max and play games with
them, and while watching over them, make sure they did not get kidnapped by gypsies or turn on scary movies that you think you want to watch but afterward wish you hadn't.

“Not Mrs. Huff again,” said Fiona. Mrs. Huff was crazy about horror movies. But she was too much of a scaredy cat to watch them by herself, and she liked to cling to Fiona and Max.

“Not after the
Zombie Revenge VII
incident,” said Mrs. Miltenberger. “I've promised your father that Mrs. Huff will not be sitting—er, watching—you ever again.”

The doorbell rang just then, before Fiona could ask the name of the new watcher. She got to the door two seconds behind Max.

He swung open the door. “There's a girl I don't know standing here!”

A teenager, a cool-looking one with high-top sneakers, hooped earrings, and a chained wallet stood in the open doorway. “You're not supposed
to open the door until you know who it is,” Fiona reminded Max.

“Fine,” said Max, shutting the door. Then he yelled into it. “Who is it?”

“Max!” yelled Fiona.

“It's Loretta Gormley,” said the teenager through the door.

“It's Betty Wormly!” said Max. He opened the door, made a face at Fiona, and went back to the couch.

“Loretta, don't mind him,” said Mrs. Miltenberger from behind Fiona. She shot Max a disapproving look. “Come in, come in. These are your charges for tonight—Fiona and Max.”

Max cleared his throat and scowled at Mrs. Miltenberger. “Okay, right. Sorry, I mean, Captain Seahorse.”

Loretta Gormley took off her jean jacket and sank into the couch. She smiled at Fiona. Fiona was already smiling. A real, true-to-life teenager was going to be her watcher.

“Want to play Squidman?” Max asked Fiona.

“No.”

“You never play with me anymore,” said Max.

“I do too.”

“Do not,” he said louder.

“Do too. Infinity.” Fiona glared at him. Max huffed and crawled under the coffee table.

Fiona sat down beside Loretta on the couch. “What grade are you in?”

“Eleventh.”

“Cool,” said Fiona.

“Yeah.” Loretta took her cell phone out of her corduroy purse and looked at it.

“I'm in fourth grade.”

“Cool,” said Loretta Gormley, pulling up her feet onto the couch so she was sitting like a pretzel.

“Yeah.”
This was going great.

“Are you in any clubs?” Fiona asked Loretta, making her legs into a pretzel.

“I'm in the Hospitality League,” she said. “We volunteer at nursing homes. And I'm a Knitwit. We knit scarves and hats for the homeless. And S.M.U.G.S.”

“What's that?”

“Students Majorly United for a Greener School,” said Loretta. “I'm totally all about helping people, you know? Making the world a better place.”

“Cool,” said Fiona.

“Yeah.” Loretta looked at her phone again and sighed.

“I'm starting my own club,” said Fiona.

“Cool.”

“Why do you keep looking at your phone?” asked Fiona.

“When somebody tells you he's going to call you, he should call. Not that I'm, like, all about sitting around and waiting for him, but it's common courtesy, you know? I mean, if I say I'm like going to do something, I do it. Am I right?”

Fiona nodded. Their conversation had somehow gone off the road and into the woods, leaving her lost. Teenagers were so mysterious.

“Anyway, do you want to know what kind of club I'm starting?” asked Fiona.

“Sure,” said Loretta.

“It's called the Society for Not-so-Ordinary Weather,” said Fiona. “S.N.O.W.”

“A meteorology club?” said Loretta.

“Yep.”

L
ate into the
night, Fiona worked on her club poster. She loaded it with sparkles and glitter and giant paper snowflakes.

Once the poster was done, Fiona designed a snowsuit. She turned her Enchanted Forest T-shirt inside out and then wrote “S.N.O.W.” in glitter paint across the front. She painted over the blue stripe on her white sneakers and dug out her white cargo pants.

• • •

Fiona taped her poster to the wall of
Mr. Bland's classroom, right beside Milo's. Then she handed out paper snowflakes. Each one had “Let it S.N.O.W.!” written on it in silver glitter ink. “Take one and pass it on,” she said.

“What is this supposed to be?” asked Milo.

“It's a snowflake,” answered Fiona.

“Duh,” said Milo. “I meant, what are they for?”

Fiona ignored him and then raised her hand.

“Yes, Fiona?” said Mr. Bland.

“Can I make an announcement?”

“That depends,” said Mr. Bland.

“It has to do with school,” said Fiona. “I promise.”

Mr. Bland nodded and Fiona went to the front of the classroom. “You are all invited to the first meeting of the Society for Not-so-Ordinary Weather after school today.” She pointed to her shirt. “I'm president.”

“But Milo's club is meeting today,” said Harold.

“Yeah, we can't have two meteorology clubs,” said Milo.

Mr. Bland cleared his throat. “Milo makes a good point, Fiona. You know, you could combine your clubs and be co-presidents.”

“No way,” said Fiona and Milo at the same time. Fiona looked from Milo to Mr. Bland. “My club isn't a meteorology club, exactly,” she said. “It's a club to predict snow days.” She waited for a big
ta-da
reaction, but it didn't come.

“Well,” said Mr. Bland, “we'll have to sort this out later.”

“Can I still have my meeting today after school?” asked Fiona.

“But that's the same time as my club meeting,” said Milo.

Mr. Bland waved his hands in the air. “For today only, you can both have your club meetings. I think this classroom is big enough to share. And we'll sort out the business of two weather clubs another time. Now, let's get going with fractions.”

• • •

Fiona and Cleo stopped kids in the
hallway, the cafeteria, and on the playground and reminded them about that day's S.N.O.W. meeting.

“I already told Milo I would join his club,” most of them said.

“Well, what did you go and do a thing like
that
for?” asked Fiona. Nobody had a very good answer.

By the end of the school day, Fiona was afraid nobody except for Cleo and Harold would want to join her club. It would be just like gym class where nobody picked her first for kickball: Fiona Finkelstein, odd girl out.

When the last bell rang, Fiona sat at her desk with her head propped in her hands. Cleo hopped up on Fiona's desk and started cracking her knuckles. They both watched as Milo pulled things—lots of things—out of a box and spread them out on the reading table. She didn't want him to catch her staring and think she was interested, but she did see a thermometer, a barometer, and some kind of wooden stick.

Fiona looked at her empty desk. She didn't have things in a box. She didn't have a box.

Kids started to trickle in through the door, and like magnets, they were pulled to Milo's table. Even Harold was being sucked in. Some people had magnetic appeal, Fiona knew, but she had never seen it in action before. She thought magnetic appeal had been along the lines of things like hearts of gold and green thumbs—just things people said,
but weren't exactly real. But now she wasn't so sure.

“Harold,” said Fiona, “the S.N.O.W. meeting is over here.”

“Milo's got one of those Canadian weather sticks that tells you what the weather is going to be like,” said Harold.

“Cool,” said Cleo as she slid off Fiona's desk toward Milo.

“Hey,” said Fiona, giving her a look.

“Well, they are,” said Cleo. “I saw them on TV. They point toward the sky when the weather is nice and they point to the ground when it's not.”

She was losing Harold and Cleo. Apparently, she did not have even one ounce of magnetic appeal. Any chance of having her own meteorology club was disappearing before her eyes. And what's worse, Milo Bridgewater was taking it from her.

“There's another club over here,” Fiona shouted
at everyone on the other side of the room. She twirled and jumped and then dropped to the floor.

“Is she okay?” asked Milo.

“She's a snowflake,” said Cleo.

Fiona jumped to her feet and curtsied.

“Your club is just about snow days?” said Milo.

Fiona nodded. “That's right.”

“What does your club do when winter's over?”

“What do you mean?” said Fiona.

“When there are no more snow days to predict because it's springtime,” he said.

Oh.
Fiona hadn't thought that far ahead.