Six Kids and a Stuffed Cat (5 page)

“That's the kind of thing you generally let other people say; announcing it just makes you come off even more obnoxious than you already are.”

“I know. But I don't let things like that get me down. I'm awesome that way.” Regan paused to look in the mirror and gloat. “I am the most perfectly well-adjusted person you'll ever meet. Probably because I'm in a ton of activities and have more friends than anyone else.”

“You say that like they're good things,” I said, wishing I could beg, borrow, or steal a little of Regan's sense of assuredness.

“I say that like it's the secret to life. Which, by the way, it is.”

Mason had been dying to say something and jumped in. “I think you're wrong, Regan, the secret to life is good grades and enrichment classes and advanced placement and extra credit. For a person like me. But, Jordan, if I were you, I'd listen to what Regan has to say.”

Mason say what? When did this conversation take a hard right onto Talking About Jordan Boulevard? Maybe no one noticed and we'll keep talking about Avery and Regan, maybe throw in a little Mason and Taylor, swing back around to more discussion about What Makes Devon Tick, or Strum. Totally abandon the Time to Study Jordan theme.

I looked at the floor and concentrated really hard:
Change the subject; veer off in a different branch of the conversation; no one's talking about Jordan. Jordan is of no interest, topic-wise.

I swear I felt the entire vibe of the room shift because of the power of my mind. I sat back, sighing, and waited for my chance to jump in with an opinion about someone else at the soonest opportunity.

No such luck.

Regan's got a one-track mind and the rails were headed directly toward me. Regan missed the whole energy shift of the room. My bad, I hadn't been facing Regan when I attempted to mind-control the population.

“Thanks, Mason.” Regan dismissed Mason's contribution to the conversation. “We'll get back to you in a second. But first, semirhetorical question: Anyone notice that Jordan gets nosebleeds a lot?”

Oh snap. We're going there. No one has any idea how hard I've tried to avoid my bloody noses as a topic of conversation. Except maybe Cary, who gets paid to talk to me about them. And probably notices when I avoid the subject every week. “Yeah? So what?”

“I read that bloody noses can be a side effect of nerves,” Regan said, staring at me as if I were an escaped mental patient about to get real interested in sharp objects.

It's not nerves,
I told Regan—silently, in my mind.
It's excessive amounts of stress that are not addressed which lead to physical manifestations. Nosebleeds are considered one of these physical manifestations.
Out loud, I said, “I'm the least nervous person you'll ever meet, Regan. I'm an extrovert, in case you hadn't noticed. Class clown. Most likely to make people pee from laughing at my jokes.”

Regan looked at me with the same expression my counselor has when I try to dodge the topic at hand by being flippant. And countered my statement, just like Cary does.

“You refused to try out for the school play when I asked you to keep me company at auditions.”

“I found the play selection derivative and trite.” I sounded calm, but I was starting to sweat buckets.

“You had a completely bogus excuse for why you couldn't be my partner on the debate team.”

“What's bogus about the fact that it was a Thursday of a full moon week and my horoscope warned me to avoid oral conflict?” It's like no one in this school is guided by the wisdom of planetary alignment except me. Geez.

“You said you didn't have time to devote to being in the big buddy program with me at the elementary school.” Regan is relentless. Why wasn't anyone else stepping in? I glanced around, but they were looking back and forth between us, watching the conversational tennis match, too interested in Regan's point and my counterpoint to break up the action by interrupting. Forty-love, advantage Regan. I gave it one last shot, though.

“That would have entailed afternoon meetings and, as you know, I've got a standing date with the detention hall.” And with Cary for the alleged social anxiety thing my counselor thinks I have. I'm not socially anxious, I'm just wildly uncomfortable talking to more than one person at a time. Unless, it seems, it's in the second floor restroom of RJ Glavine Middle School. I was holding my own. Until, of course, Regan started in on me.

“You've never tried out for a single team even though I always invite you to go out for basketball, tennis, track, soccer, lacrosse, and golf when I'm being evaluated for the teams.” Regan, clearly, doesn't mind being scrutinized by people while performing physical activity. That made one of us.

“What's your point?” I finally asked.

“My point is that I think you might be insecure.”

Man! I hate being psychoanalyzed by a peer. Especially when they're right. “I'm just not into calling attention to myself. Unlike Devon.” I shot a glance in Devon's direction.

By that point, Devon was leading a clap-along, arms overhead, clapping to a steady beat, as if rousing the crowd to get to their feet and join in for the best part of the song everyone's been waiting for the entire concert.

“Devon commits to the moment.” Regan's face was positively glowing with admiration for Devon. It really ticked me off.

“Yeah, too bad Devon doesn't commit to reality.” Even I winced at what a nasty thing that was for me to say and did a wordless gesture of apology, slapping my forehead and shaking my head in disgust. Everyone nodded, silently excusing me because they knew the heat of the moment had caused me to say something I didn't really mean.

“If I were to bet,” Regan suddenly launched into a spot-on impression of Cary, “I'd say that you secretly wish you were more like Devon. Go on, and look me in the eye and tell me you don't dream of becoming a stand-up comedian. I'd put money on the fact that you practice one-liners in the bathroom mirror and take notes so you'll have funny things to say in conversations, don't you?”

Well, duh,
didn't seem like the right thing to say, so I didn't say anything.

Avery piped up. “I think Regan makes a good point about you and Devon: One of you is living the dream; the other one has detention all the time and a lot of bloody noses.”

We turned to study Devon who was rocking the neck of the guitar up and down, arching back as if in a backbend and then leaning forward in a crouch and prowling across the stage, bent over, knees bent, totally blissed out.

Avery had a point. A good one. And if this is what it was like to talk to a bunch of people at one time, I could deal with it, maybe it was growing on me. After all, my nose hadn't started oozing again the whole time we'd been together. And, although I'd been snarky, I hadn't offended anyone. Like I usually do. Which was a nice change of pace.

“Okay, you got me.” I threw my hands up in defeat. “Clearly, we should all be more like Devon and Regan.”

Regan reached in a file folder that appeared, seemingly out of thin air, and handed me a registration form for a talent show the drama club was putting on. Regan had already filled it out for me, all I had to do was add my signature. “Here.” Regan grinned. “You can get over your fear of speaking doing a set at the fundraiser next week. You'll tell jokes for a good cause and overcome your performance anxiety by playing to a crowd bigger than one.”

I signed my name before I could think about it and handed the form back. “So, I'm going to join at least one of Regan's extracurricular activities. Good thing it's the one that plays to my skill set: I'll be able to wander around telling random jokes, maybe even doing a few improv skits.” I wheeled around as if facing a live audience and pointed. “You! Come up here on the stage next to me. An escaped convict, the grease trap of an Atlantic City casino's kitchen stovetop, and a misunderstanding about a blind date. Now improvise a scene with me using those ideas and . . . GO!”

“I actually think that sounds kind of amazing. I'll sign up and get involved if you will—probably easier if we have each other's backs. I'll be less likely to doze through another school day if I know someone's got my back around here.”

We all turned to study Avery. Who, by the mere fact of speaking and capturing our attention, had inadvertently, but undeniably, jumped onto the hot seat. Baton passed. It was now Avery's turn to face the merciless scrutiny of peer-group Q&A in the impromptu interrogation room that had, until recently, been the second-floor restroom of RJ Glavine Middle School.

“You don't have a little brother, do you?” I asked Avery.

“No.” Avery petted the cat poking out of the bag. And then smiled at it. Looked up from the cat and smiled at me. Relieved it was all coming out.

“The stuffed cat belongs to you, doesn't it?”

“Yeah. But not the puke smell. I don't know where
that
came from.”

“Backstage,” Regan explained. “You do not even want to know what happened after the musical last month. Thought we'd cleaned everything up. Guess not.”
Actors are so careless,
I thought.
I'd never be that kind of sloppy performer.

“Now that we all know the stuffed cat belongs to you, are you going to leave him at home?” I asked.

“Probably just get a bigger bag.”

“That's what I figured.” It's what I would have done.

“I love when stuff works out so I look like the really cool person with all the answers.” Regan paused to reflect. “It happens a lot, but it never gets old.”

“That's very chummy for you three and, no doubt, in the best interests of the entire school,” Mason said, sounding impatient and totally out of the loop in terms of the magical bonding moments that had just occurred. “But Taylor and I have a book report to finish. Taylor, you have one last paragraph to write and then you're done. Then, today, when your mother asks you what you did today, you can say, ‘Spared Mason from dying of frustration and boredom by finishing my homework assignment.' She'll be so proud.”

“What about you, Mase?” Regan asked. “What are you going to tell your mom about what you and your friends did today?”

“She would never ask that. Because she knows that I don't have friends. I have well-connected contacts. And influential references. And helpful associates. And challenging academic colleagues.”

“Nah. That's not all. You have friends.” Was that a smile or bared teeth? With the old Taylor, it would have been a sign of aggression. But now, with the new and improved Taylor, I was going to go with the belief that it might actually be a smile. A real one. Mason was harder to convince.

“Right. You want me to believe that you actually stopped to think about whether or not I have a big enough social circle?” Mason's facial expression was somewhere between suspicious and doubtful.

Taylor carefully recited a list of numbers: “Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, and twenty-three.”

I scratched my head and Regan looked stumped. Avery, however, was tickled to death by the newest turn of events. “Cool! First Devon tunes out and has a little concert going on in the corner. Then Jordan turns into a human punch-line generator. Now Taylor's become a number-spewing savant. You cannot tell me there isn't something really unique in the air at this school. Even my parents would not believe weirder things could happen.”

I studied Mason's face. I saw confusion and a smile and wasn't sure what the overriding reaction to Taylor's number list was until I heard the admiration in Mason's voice. “No. That's not it; those are prime numbers. Taylor just listed
prime numbers
.” Mason turned to Taylor and grinned. “You
have
been paying attention when we work together.”

Taylor fake-scowled. “Not only is it hard to tune someone like you out, but—” Then Taylor took a deep breath and, in a very serious voice, said, “Concomitant with your mistaken belief that I'm not nearly as bright as you are, is the insulting way you have ignored the fact that I am ideal friend material.”

Just when I thought the most interesting part of the day had already happened, a few times over, Taylor goes ahead and throws a new curve into the game. I held my breath, waiting to see what happened next.

“What did Taylor just say?” Avery poked me.

“
Is
that still Taylor?” Regan poked me from the other side.

“Shhhhh.” I waved them off. “I want to hear Taylor explain why it was a good idea to play dumb just to cozy up to Mason.” Because it sure wasn't anything I was going to figure out on my own.

“You pretended to be stupid so I'd tutor you?” Mason asked.

“Don't flatter yourself.” Taylor's cheeks turned red. “I was struggling—a bit—to catch up after I had mono last term and I needed some help. For a while. A
little
while. But then I kind of liked hanging out with you; you're not so bad for an antisocial intellectual snob who doesn't have time for amigos.”

“You have a weird way about you.”

I wanted to retrieve the understatement of the year award I'd previously given to Avery and hand it to Mason for that line.

“Anyone can make a friend the old-fashioned way, ‘hey, we have a lot in common and get along, wanna hang out and watch TV?' Boring. My way showed . . .” Taylor and Mason, vocab buddies and now, apparently, real life friends, too, finished the sentence together, “Panache.”

The loudspeaker bleated:
“Attention! The storm warnings have been lifted for this entire area. The weather is clear and it is now safe to leave your secure area. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Oh.