My Perfect Life (7 page)

Lola marched across the room as though the words “determined” and “grimly” were in her stage directions.

“Why Lola… Ella…” The only things I’ve ever heard that purr like Carla Santini are Rolls Royce engines and very big cats, although the way the group in front of her immediately parted hers might have been the voice of the Lord. “Have you come to wish me luck?” She picked up a badge from the box in front of her and held it towards us. “Or did you want one of these?”

Carla’s badges were a very attractive silver and blue, and besides being in focus her name actually lit up and blinked.

The sight of the badge distracted Lola from her mission. She stared at the flashing name for a couple of seconds, and then looked back at Carla. “What is that? You’re not going to try to convince us that you’re paying for this stuff with the money from the school?”

Carla is good at looking innocent, too. “There’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t use private funds as well.”

Lola and I said, “But it’s not fair,” together.

“Fair?” tittered Carla. “Of course it’s fair. This is a democracy, remember? You two
do
believe in democracy, don’t you?”

She was going to be telling everyone we were fascists next.

“Of course we do,” I answered loudly. “But it doesn’t seem very democratic to me that a person can win an election just because she has more money than her opponents.”

“And where does stealing the other side’s posters fit into this democracy of yours?” enquired Lola.

Carla didn’t blink. “Excuse me? Are you trying to make a point?”

Personally, I would have liked to take the badge Carla was still holding and make a point in her head.

Lola said, “Yes, I am. We came in here because we want to know what happened to Ella and Sam’s posters. What have you and your zombie army done with them?”

“Posters? Me?” Carla sounded as if candy floss wouldn’t melt in her mouth, never mind butter. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

Lola arched one eyebrow. Her voice arched as well. “Don’t you? It’s probably because you’ve been so busy having your photograph taken and blowing up balloons. Let me refresh your memory then. The Gerard–Creek posters mysteriously vanished over the weekend.”

Carla held her smile like a gun. “And you’re accusing me of taking them?”

“You bet your last badge I’m accusing you,” answered Lola. “Who else do you know would do a thing like that?”

Carla knew someone.

“Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you took down your posters yourself.” Her voice was clear and loud. “It’s the kind of cheap trick you’re known for.”

Lola stood straight for better projection. “No, it isn’t. It’s the kind of cheap trick you’re known for.”

Carla went on as though Lola had kept her mouth shut for once. “And there is another candidate – in case you’ve forgotten.” Carla’s smile was the smile of a cat with several feathers sticking out of its mouth. “One who’s a lot more desperate for votes than I am.”

“Morty?” I think I may have gasped.

“Morty didn’t do it,” snapped Lola. “Morty’s a man of honour.”

“And you are what?” drawled Carla. “A woman of your word? Because it does come down to that, doesn’t it Lola? Your word against mine.”

The common room had stopped being noisy. The silence solidified around us.

Lola opened her mouth and shut it again.

“And how’s your friend Stu Wolff these days, Lola?” asked Carla. Stu Wolff was the lead singer of Sidartha. Lola and I had not only met him and been invited by him to Sidartha’s farewell party, the three of us were picked up by the police together. But such was the duplicitous genius of Carla Santini no one believed us, of course. “Been to any more of his parties?”

Carla’s
campaign went off with a bang. Her posters were everywhere and multiplying faster than amoeba. I was afraid to stand still for more than a second in case someone stuck one on me. They were in the hallways; they were on the windows and the doors; they were on the trees, vending machines and water fountains. They were even in the toilets. You shut the door to your cubicle and there she was, sweetness and light in Kodachrome, suggesting that you vote for her.

Besides the posters, of course, there were the badges. The tiny blue lights flashed like fireflies in the crowd as you walked to your classes.

There were a few Morty Slinger posters around, but next to Carla’s they might as well have been drawn with markers. You only noticed them because they looked so pathetic. Sam said there was still a Gerard–Creek poster in the boys’ changing room in the gym – which brought the grand total left on campus to one.

It was like an election in Stalin’s Russia. A visiting alien would have thought that there was only one person running for President.

It wasn’t until lunch, however, that I realized that it wasn’t just aliens who might think that.

Morty Slinger ran up to me and Lola outside the cafeteria. He was wearing one of his badges. Morty’s badges were pretty unique in the history of political gimcracks. Instead of having his name on them, they said SMILE in neon green on a neon pink background. They cost even less than ours.

“What happened?” demanded Morty. “Why did you and Sam drop out of the race?”

I guess you could say that our campaign, in contrast to Carla’s, had gone off with a squelch. Morty had to be at least the tenth person that morning to ask me why I’d decided not to run.

“We didn’t drop out.” I pulled off a few blue and white stars from the poster behind me that were caught in my sweater.

Lola amplified. “Carla just thought Ella and Sam needed more of a challenge so she disappeared all trace of them.”

“Thank God for that,” said Morty with a surge of emotion not usually associated with the scientific mind. “I was really worried when I saw all your posters were gone.” He looked down at his feet. “I was afraid it might have something to do with Sam.”

Lola gave me a look.

“Sam?” I laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“You know … because of the pressure and everything…” He kicked a fallen Carla badge against the wall. “Because of his record.”

The image of an old-fashioned gramophone record appeared in my mind. I wasn’t sure what was on it.

“His record?” Confusion made me almost giggle. “What record?”

Morty shuffled. “I’m not trying to find out what it was Sam did – I really don’t care. I mean, from the little I’ve heard it’s pretty bad, but—”

There was a flurry of shawl and rattling jewellery beside me. “What’s pretty bad?” cut in Lola. “What in the cosmos are you talking about?”

The many interesting features of the corridor floor finally lost their hold on Morty’s attention. He looked up at us. He blinked.

“Sam’s record,” said Morty. And then, seeing that this wasn’t making us exactly nod with understanding, he added, “You know, his criminal record. Everybody’s talking about it.”

Now he had
me
blinking. “They are?”

“And exactly what are they saying?” asked Lola.

Morty gawped. “You mean you don’t know about it?”

“Of course we don’t know about it.” Lola’s head went up and her voice rose. Bangles beat against each other in rage. “How could we know about it? It doesn’t exist.”

Morty licked his lips. “That’s not what I heard.”

“So we gather,” said Lola.

Morty’s eyes darted back and forth behind his broken glasses; he was ready to run.

“Well?” Lola persisted. “What have you heard, Morty?” She looked like she wanted to shake him.

Farley Brewbaker told Morty that Sam had been arrested and only just managed to stay out of jail. Farley said it could have been a couple of years ago, or it could have been recently. Or it could have been both. Ben Talbot said he’d heard it was something to do with drugs, but Elizabeth Mistle said a reliable source had told her that it was robbery, she thought armed. Somebody else said there had definitely been more than one incident, and a boy in Morty’s computer class said he heard that Sam would definitely have been sent away if his mother hadn’t been so ill at the time
and
that the judge was lenient.

“Boy,” I said when Morty was through, “that’s some story.”

“It makes you wonder why we bother reading Aeschylus when there’s so much imaginative drama being created right here in Deadwood, doesn’t it?” asked Lola.

Morty said, “You mean it’s not true?”

Lola groaned. “Of course it’s not true. Sam has never committed a criminal act in his life.”

She obviously didn’t consider stealing Eliza Doolittle’s dress a criminal act.

“Well…” Morty rocked from one foot to the other. “You haven’t known him all that long … maybe he forgot to tell you.”

“He didn’t forget to tell us anything,” I said. “These are just rumours, Morty.” And malicious ones at that. “They aren’t true.”

Morty hummed.

Lola put an arm around my shoulder. “Ella and I are Sam’s best friends. I think we’d know if he had a murky past, don’t you?”

It seemed possible to me that Morty was going to swallow his tongue. Either that or fall over.

“Well…” Morty mumbled. “I mean, you’re not necessarily the most reliable witness yourself, are you?”

He was looking over my head, but we both knew which of us he was talking to: Lola. Lying Lola.

“Oh, my God!” Lola pulled away from me. She looked as though she’d actually just caught a glimpse of God, possibly peering out from behind a poster. “Carla Santini! Don’t you see? This is all Carla Santini’s doing!”

Morty slapped his forehead. “Of course!” He looked really relieved. “How could I be so dense? Carla’s already started slinging the mud.”

“And now she’s going to stop.” Lola grabbed my elbow and tugged me towards the door of the cafeteria. “Come on, El.”

“But I thought we were going to the computer room to work on our posters.”

“We can do that later. First I want a word with your unworthy opponent.”

“I’m coming, too,” said Morty. “I wouldn’t miss this for Stephen Hawkins.”

Naturally, we had no trouble locating Carla Santini in the crowded lunchroom: she was the one under the cloud of balloons.

Carla was sitting with Alma, Tina and Marcia as usual. They were in the middle of a pretty animated conversation, but Carla, with her witch’s instincts, looked up as we neared their table. She didn’t so much as blink, even though Lola looked like Lady Macbeth in a really bad mood.

“Well, speak of the devil!” cried Carla, her eyes on me. “I was just saying how much I admire you, Ella – you know, with all these rumours about Sam going around…” If she smiled any harder her teeth would fall out. “A lot of people with less character would have dumped him from their ticket by now.”

“How fortuitous that you should mention the rumours,” said Lola. “That’s exactly what we wanted to talk to you about.”

Shock froze the lovely face of Carla Santini for at least half a nanosecond. And then she shrieked a laugh. “Oh, don’t tell me … you’re not blaming me for them, too?” She looked to her fan club, horror in her big blue eyes. “Can you believe it? First they blame me for taking down their posters, and now they’re blaming me because Sam Creek’s a criminal.”

The Santini contingent spluttered with indignation. They’d never heard of such a stupendous outrage. It was a miracle their hair didn’t go straight from the shock.

“You deceitful, duplicitous—” Lola hesitated, obviously searching for the right word.

“Viper?” suggested Morty.

“Viper!” boomed Lola.

“Name-calling?” Carla tutted. “I thought even
you
were a little more mature than that.”

But Lola didn’t slow down. “You know perfectly well that you started those stupid rumours.” She was speaking very clearly for someone whose teeth were clenched. “Talk about name-calling. The difference between me and you is that you do it behind people’s backs.”

“No it’s not,” said Carla – sweetly but loudly enough to be heard in the hot meal queue. “The difference between me and you is that
I’m
not a liar.”

“You’re lying now!” howled Lola. I thought she was going for lift-off. “You started those rumours just to discredit Sam.”

Carla kept smiling in a serene, almost regal, way. “Says you,” said Carla.

“Oh, God…” moaned Alma. “Like anyone would believe Lola, right?”

Someone sitting behind them laughed and said, “Lying Lola.”

Carla shrugged helplessly. “You see? Nobody believes a word you say, Lola. Not a single word. They all know better.”

And then, from behind us, a sour male voice said, “But they’d believe me.”

Lola and I both turned around. It wasn’t Morty. It was Sam, smiling his legendary I-don’t-give-a-dead-sparkplug smile at Carla Santini.

“Why don’t you just tell everybody what they want to know, and we can end this little drama now?” Sam asked her. “Then we won’t have all these conflicting rumours. We’ll just have the simple truth.”

Carla opened her mouth and shut it again. It was a historic moment in Dellwood High history. Carla Santini didn’t have an answer.

Sam squeezed in between me and Lola, resting his hands on Carla’s table. “What’s the matter?” he goaded. “You forget what it was I did? You can’t remember what the Dellwood, New Jersey crime of the century is?”

Carla gave a soft and girlish laugh. “They’re just rumours, Sam. They—”

“No they’re not,” snapped Sam. “They’re totally true.” He leaned his face a little closer. “Let me help you out, Carla. Refresh your memory.” He really has an amazing smile. “I got into trouble for cutting off all the hair of a cheerleader in my old school. Shaved her bald.” By now his face was right in hers. “You better watch out, princess. The mood you’ve put me in, it could just happen again.”

“Bingo!” Lola whispered in my ear. Sam had joined the fray.

Mrs
Baggoli made Carla leave her balloons out in the hall during English on the grounds that we were reading
Oedipus
, not
Dumbo
, but aside from that brief period in the day the cloud of silver and blue balloons followed Carla wherever she went. They bobbed above her as she walked through the corridors; they floated over her as she sat in classes; they made it easy for students to find her in the cafeteria – or anywhere else. Which at least meant that we always knew where she was – so she couldn’t sneak up and stab us in the back.