Please, Please, Please (3 page)

“Really?”

She kissed my forehead. “Really.”

Paul was using the computer, still in his pajamas, so Mom dressed him. I hate that—he’s eight, not two. Make him do something for himself. Anyway, we still got to school early. We always do, because Mom has to be at work. She goes in early so she can get out early to take me to dance.

Morgan was already at school, waiting for me sitting on the wall. She rides her bike.

“Hi!” I said. I tried to shove my ringed hand into my pocket, but my black flared Capezios have no pockets.

“Come up,” Morgan said. “Did he call?”

“Who?”
Why didn’t I think of a plan
, I asked myself. Mom is so stupid to say it will all work out. How? What does that mean, it will all work out? It doesn’t make any sense. My head was buzzing as I climbed the wall and sat next to Morgan with my book bag on my lap, my hands hidden underneath.

“Who,” Morgan repeated. “As if. Tommy!”

“No,” I said. “He didn’t. Not since Friday, I mean.”

“Don’t worry. When I went out with him last year, he never called me. Did you talk to Zoe?”

“About what?” Panic.

“About Jonas,” she said impatiently.

“Oh,” I said, rubbing the quilted cotton of my book bag like it could bring me luck. “Um, I-I-I, yeah. I did.”

“And?”

“She, I didn’t, she was going to.”

“Oh, dread,” Morgan said, blowing her bangs away from her eyes. “Maybe she’ll ask him on the bus this morning!”

“Yeah,” I said.

She grabbed me on the arms and said, “Eeee!” I almost fell off the wall. “Won’t that be fun?” she asked me. “The four of us? Now if you’d just quit ballet and play soccer like a normal person, we could . . .”

“Morgan!” She’s wanted me to quit since fourth grade, when she had to.

“I know, I know,” she said quickly. We never really talk too much about ballet. As soon as the subject comes up, we can’t even look at each other. It always feels like she’s angry at me, that I didn’t quit then, too. I wonder sometimes how things would be different now if we hadn’t been eavesdropping that afternoon.

“It’s not that I don’t want to play soccer,” I whispered.

“I know. Forget it. Anyway he’s cute, don’t you think?”

“Jonas? Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my book bag balanced on my lap.

“Gawky, but in a cute way. He’s sweeter than Tommy,” Morgan said, blowing her long bangs out of her eyes.

“Tommy’s obnoxious,” I agreed.

“Jonas’s hair, though.”

“What?” I asked.

Morgan bit her bottom lip. “It’s sort of . . .”

“I like curly hair,” I assured her. “And he’s so sweet.”

“Too sweet, you think?” She stared into my eyes. Her eyes are so dark you can’t see the pupils.

“No,” I stuttered. I wiped the sweat off my forehead.

Morgan shrugged. “Anyway, the four of us could have so much fun together, as a foursome. Hey!” Morgan said, grabbing my hand. “You got the ring!”

“What ring?” I asked, even though she had grabbed the only ring I had on, my new friendship ring with Zoe.

“The friendship ring!” she squealed. “This is the one we saw last week, right?”

She had been there when Zoe and I first noticed them. I swallowed. No words were coming out.

“I thought you were waiting for me,” she said in her pouty way. “How much did it cost?”

“Twenty-nine dollars,” I heard myself answering.

“Whoa.” Morgan shook her head. Her long brown hair is straight and shiny, and she was wearing her khaki shorts and black polo shirt, her favorites. It’s her look, that and sandals. Morgan has style, even my mother admits that.

“Um. . . . They have installment,” I mumbled.

She smiled. “That’s true,” she said. “Maybe if I do some chores, my mom will give me money to put down. Do you think she’ll ask him?”

“Who?”

“Zoe!” Morgan said. “Jonas!”

“Oh,” I said. “Um, yeah, probably.”

“Should I pull my hair back?” She stretched the black scrunchie she was wearing on her wrist and shook her hair off her face, to show me the pulled-back option.

“It looks good down,” I told her.

“All right. Thanks.” She smiled at me, crossed her fingers, and touched her tiny turned-up nose. It was our secret sign for being best friends. We had made it up back in fourth grade.

I made the sign back, quickly, then pulled my T-shirt away from my body a few times to give myself some air. It was an awfully hot day, for mid-September.

“Here they are!” Morgan pointed at the bus rumbling into the circle. It had a big letter B on it, so I knew who was inside. “Do I look OK?” Morgan asked. “Be honest.” She gritted her teeth so I could inspect them. She has a terror of something being caught between her teeth—she brushes at least three times every day, with plain baking soda sometimes, which made me gag when I tried it at her house. Morgan told me, “Stick with it, you can get used to anything.”

“You look great,” I said. “You could do a toothpaste commercial.”

She shoved me lightly. Then we both turned to watch the B bus’s door creak open. She blew at her bangs again, then shook her hair back from her face. It looked very cool, how she did that.

A few sixth graders got off the bus first, then Jonas and Tommy Levit. Jonas looked over at us and smiled, but Tommy headed straight for the upper playground where some boys were playing Cream the Carrier. He has the straightest eyebrows, I noticed. They make him look so serious and intense.

“Jonas really does walk like a chicken,” Morgan whispered. “Doesn’t he?”

“Tommy’s high-tops are untied,” I said.

Morgan flicked her hair back again and whispered, “We’re so bad.”

Another couple of kids got off.
Maybe Zoe will be absent
, I thought and wished. I had found ten items this morning besides my ring for my Bring Yourself in a Sack. I could just avoid the whole thing, and Mom would end up being right—it would all work out.

Just as I was praying that, though, Zoe stepped off the bus. I saw her look around for us, her dirty-blond hair tucked behind her ears, her oversize T-shirt hanging loosely down over her jeans.

“Hey!” Zoe yelled when she spotted us. She waved, and I saw that her friendship ring was right there on her finger.

I jumped down and said “Hi!” I crossed my arms over my chest, hoping Zoe would do the same, but instead she was actually playing with her ring—wiggling it around with her thumb looped under her two middle fingers to get at it. The boys on the upper playground could notice that ring.

Morgan jumped down and stood next to us.

“So,” I said quickly to Zoe. “Did you say anything to Jonas?”

“Like what?” she asked. She hiked her backpack up on her shoulder and played with her ring again. “I mean, they’re at my bus stop.” Her hand looked huge to me; I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

“No,” I said, smiling at her and leaning in close. “About Morgan.”

Zoe looked at Morgan, so I did, too. She was staring at her perfectly turned-out feet in their clunky sandals. Morgan wears sandals until November.

“Oh,” Zoe said. “Not yet. But listen, Morgan, my sister said yes, you can have her old cleats for soccer. Size five, right?”

“Yeah,” Morgan mumbled, without looking up. My stomach lurched.

The bell to go in rang.

“I’ll bring them in tomorrow,” Zoe told her.

Morgan shrugged. I tried to think of what to do. She saw it, obviously. She saw Zoe’s ring, and I was stuck there between them, unable to disappear.

Zoe shrugged at me.

I had to say something, so I asked Zoe, “You’ll ask Jonas?” My voice sounded cracky and far away.

Zoe tilted her head and said, “Sure.”

“Don’t,” Morgan said.

“What?” Zoe asked. “You changed your mind already?” She smiled at me and then at Morgan and then back at me. She has the friendliest smile—you can see her molars; it makes you have to smile back.

Kids were passing us going in to school. “You coming?” Olivia Pogostin asked us.

I nodded and looked up at my book bag on the wall, next to Morgan’s. “Zoe?” I asked. “Could you grab mine and Morgan’s bags? We’re too short.” Morgan and I used to share a chair at each other’s kitchen tables, and her mother would say look at the Tinies! A little pair of Tinies! It was a sort of thing with us, being little. I wanted to show her we’re still friends.

Morgan didn’t smile back. She glanced at Zoe, then grabbed her own bag. I guess she’s grown a lot since last year. “I can get my own,” she said.

Zoe pulled my bag down and, handing it to me, said, “I’ll try to talk to Jonas today.”

“No,” Morgan said. “I hate him. He walks like a chicken. Ew.” She walked fast into school, yelling, “Hey, Olivia—wait up!” Zoe and I shrugged at each other and followed her in. My legs felt like two hundred pounds each.

five

P
ermission slips for apple picking
were handed out in homeroom. “Yes!” Lou Hochstetter said when he got his. “Apple picking!”

“Ah,” said Ms. Cress. “Something excites Lou besides World War Two artillery?”

“I like other stuff,” Lou protested. “I like, um . . .”

“Yes?” asked Ms. Cress. She’s always about to laugh, which I think is unusual for a math/science teacher. But she’s also really young, like twenty-something, and she wears short skirts with boots—except when she’s coaching the girls’ soccer team, when she wears sneakers, short-shorts, and T-shirts. All the boys come to soccer games at least partly because they’re all in love with her. It would be typical of Lou to say, “I like you!”

But he didn’t. Even Lou isn’t that bold. He said, “Um . . .”

“Hay-stacking!” Gideon Weld coughed into his hands.

“I like the Internet,” Lou said, sinking into his chair. He’s the tallest boy in our grade and sort of a doof, but also funny. His mother is running for mayor. “And I like apple picking.”

Ms. Cress raised her eyebrows, twice, and said, “Mmm-hmm.” We all knew what she was thinking about. “Work with me, people,” she said. She wrote the information on the board for us to fill in the blanks of our permission slips.

I love trips, and I’ve been looking forward to this one for six years. It’s tradition at Boggs Middle that the seventh grade starts out the year going apple picking. It’s supposed to promote unity. Last year on the trip, two couples got caught making out behind a haystack. The whole school found out, of course, including Ms. Cress and every other teacher. “Hay-stacking” immediately became our new dirty word. The two couples were practically movie stars for a week. We mostly say making out or scooping, now, but “hay-stacking” still means a romantic, forbidden kind of kissing. Nobody says it out loud—you sort of have to clear your throat with it: “Hay-stacking.”

“Oh, no,” I heard myself groan when Ms. Cress wrote Monday, September 21, on the board.

“Something wrong, CJ?” Ms. Cress asked.

I shook my head, but then asked, “What time will we get back?”

“Six thirty,” Ms. Cress said and wrote at the same time. “Now that’s a week from today, ’K? So we need these permission slips back pronto!”

I rested my face in my hands all through the announcements. Even after the bell rang, while Ms. Cress was yelling, “And, hey, really try to get these permission slips back to me fast—we’ve got a contest going in the teachers’ lunchroom, and I want to win the cookie!” I didn’t look up. She thinks she’s hip, such a kid. Teachers should just realize they are adults.

I finally folded my permission slip, stuck it into my bag, and headed toward Spanish. Zoe, who takes French, was outside Madame F’s door, hanging out chatting with Olivia.

“Is your hip hurting?” Olivia asked me.

“My what?”

“Your hip,” she repeated. “You’re rubbing it.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing I was still searching for a nonexistent pocket. “Um, a little. But, I mean, no.” Olivia’s mother and mine are number one on each other’s speed dial, so everything gets back, fast.

“That’s good,” Olivia said, twirling one of her pigtails.

“Thanks,” I said.

Tommy passed us, going to Spanish. On his way, he said, sort of in my direction, “Hi.”

Zoe and I looked at each other. I could feel myself blushing so I covered my face with my hands.

Olivia asked, “What?”

I expected Zoe to explain, but when I looked up, she was staring at her friendship ring, readjusting it. So I told Olivia, “Tommy asked me out.”

“Oh,” Olivia said. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She’s really sweet in some ways, but she has strong opinions. I think I let her down sometimes. “When?” she asked.

“Friday,” I said.

“Congratulations.” She opened her folder holder and flipped through.

“Thanks,” I said again. We’re more cousins than friends, Olivia and I. In fact, I call her mom Aunt Betsy. She’s one of the few not-totally-white kids around, because her father is half-black and her mother is half-Filipino. Over the summer some kids at the Swim Club whispered, “Kung Fu,” right in front of us at the snack bar. Olivia said, “So what, they’re showing their ignorance,” but I wanted to punch their ignorant teeth in. Mom said I had good instincts; she didn’t blame me. When I was in
The Nutcracker
last year, Olivia gave me a good-luck flip book she made herself of a ballerina doing a leap and then a pirouette, which was amazing and obviously took her forever to make no matter how talented she is. But even though we really do care about each other, we’re very different—she still wants to invent board games together and send them to be patented. I’m ready to talk about boys. She’s much more of a brain so I feel stupid, sometimes, like when I bring home a test with an 87 and my dad says that’s great, what did Olivia get, 101? It’s a joke, but still, sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to act toward her.

She slid her permission slip into one of her folders and asked me, “So you can’t go on the trip, huh?”

“What?” Zoe asked. “Why?”

Morgan was just passing us, going to Spanish, but she said, “Dance.”

“Hey, wait up,” I called to her. We usually walk together.

Zoe and Olivia followed us. “What is she talking about?” Zoe asked me.