Smiles to Go (8 page)

• B. Second Option (Cloudy Sky)
  

• IV. Extra Credit
  

• V. Equipment/Materials
  

• VI. The Bait (at school, February 14)
  

• VII. Procedure
  

• C. Drink hot chocolate
  

• 2. Romantic
  
• D. Words
  

PD132

I
bought stars today at Lily Pad. Little gold ones, like I used to get on my spelling quizzes in first grade. I also bought hot chocolate. Microwavable. With little marshmallows.

PD133

T
his is the month! Thirteen days and a wake-up.

PD136

T
he more I look at The Plan, the more I see what it doesn’t cover: What happens after the kiss? How will she react? What will she say? I keep coming up with new possibilities. All day long I hear her voice in my head:

“Oh, Will!”

“Will…I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”

“Those stars did the trick!”

“I wish you hadn’t done that, Will.”

PD137

“Y
ou Romeo, you.”

“Mmm…yummy.”

“I’ve had better kisses from a puppy.”

PD139

O
ne week!

PD140

“W
ill…wow! Who have you been practicing on?”

“Kiss me again, you fool.”

“Not bad—but you’re no BT.”

PD141

I
was tense at Monopoly tonight. All the usual little things—Mi-Su calling me “sicko” because of my anchovies and extra sauce, BT yapping he’s “wheelin’ and dealin’”—seemed a little different, dipped in glitter, like this is our last Saturday-night Monopoly game before the world changes—again. I remembered Mi-Su’s words when the proton died: “Nothing will ever be the same.”

I watched BT move the tiny iron around the board, and suddenly the question occurred to me:
Am
I
cheating on
him?
How much do I really know about him and Mi-Su? Mi-Su says it was the night, not BT. Is she telling the truth? Even if she
is, what about BT? Was it just the night and the stars for him, too? Or was it Mi-Su? Has he been thinking about Mi-Su just like I have? Has he discovered the back of her neck, too?

PD142

S
omething could have happened.

But didn’t.

Around seven o’clock tonight the doorbell rang. It was Mi-Su. I don’t know why, but I was shocked. She just stood there smiling: black coat, bright red knitted hat with bunny-tail tassel, matching red mittens, matching red nose from the cold, just standing there smiling at me, breaking the world record for adorableness. I didn’t think—I just did. I reached out and grabbed her and kissed her right there on the front step….

Hah! I wish.

Mi-Su really did come to the door, but it was only a kind of second me—Shadow Me—that reacted that way. Real Me just stood
there, because making a move now wasn’t in The Plan and there were still three days to go. Real Me smiled back at her and said, “Hi. What’s up?” and she made a face and said, “Geometry. I hate it. Can you help me?” and Real Me said, “Sure, come on in.”

She stayed for a couple of hours and we did her geometry, and most of the time we were alone in the basement and sometimes her face was only inches from mine, and Shadow Me kept kicking Real Me in the shins and hissing, “Kiss her…kiss her
now
!…” but I stayed with The Plan, and when I went to bed the pillow whispered in my ear, “You blew it.”

PD143

“N
ice try, for an amateur. Come back and see me in a couple of years.”

PD145

A
long the flagstone walkway that goes from our driveway to the front door, there are bushes. I was coasting down the sidewalk after school, about a block from home. Tabby’s school bus stopped and out she popped. She trudged up the driveway, her backpack hugging her like a baby monkey. She was almost to the front step when suddenly the bushes moved and out popped Korbet Finn. “Happy Valentine’s Day!” he shouted and planted a nose-deep kiss in her cheek.

Tabby recoiled, snarled, “That’s tomorrow, lugnut!” and shoved him back into the bushes.

Uh-oh. Was this an omen for tomorrow—The Big Day?

I’m going to chicken out. I know it. I’m terrified. My atomic watch is ticking off the seconds. I can’t do it. I don’t like not knowing what comes after Plan Part VII-G. In chess, you don’t make a move until you know how your opponent will counter. I’m going to chicken out!

PD146

T
he night was clear. No clouds. The stars as good as they get around here. Even the moon showed up, but just a thin toenail clipping, not bright enough to drown out the stars.

I set up my scope. Couldn’t find the Horsehead. (Aw shucks.) Let her try. No dice. Her disappointment was no act. “Poopy!” she said. I don’t know why, that just tickled me. We drank hot chocolate from the same thermos cup. The red plastic cup matched her mittens and hat. I had been afraid she would say, “Didn’t you bring a cup for me?” but she didn’t.

When we finished the hot chocolate, I screwed the cup back on and walked a couple of steps away from her and pretended to gaze up at the sky and said, “Hey, guess what?”

“What?” she said.

“I think we’re having our own little star party here.”

After I said it I didn’t breathe, because I was sure she was going to say, “Are you
kidding
? This isn’t even
close
to a
real
star party at French Creek. So don’t get any
ideas
, pal.”

But she didn’t.

She looked at me. She looked at the sky. She held out her arms as if welcoming the stars to come down. She said, “Well…yeah…you’re right.”

I reached into my pocket (where I had dumped the paper stars before I left the house). I walked over to her. Even with the real stars up there, I was going to use all my ammo. I swallowed hard. “Know what we need?” I said—croaked, actually.

“What?” she said dreamily, looking up.

I froze. My hand was in my pocket and the stars were in my hand, but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak.

And then she seemed to come out of her trance and her face was turning toward me and her mouth was opening to say something and suddenly I was doing it—holding my fistful of stars over her head and letting them fall and blurting way too loud, “More stars!”

And “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

And kissing her.

So hard that my teeth clacked into hers. I
backed off and it was soft and OK and her shoulders were in my hands and I only knew what I could feel because my eyes were clamped down shut. When I finally pulled away and opened my eyes, I was surprised to see that hers were closed, too.

I braced myself for her words—
Please don’t wisecrack
, I prayed—but she said nothing. She just smiled. And kissed me again.

We were halfway home when I realized I had left my telescope behind and we had to go back for it.

PD147

O
n Fridays the first time I see Mi-Su is in second-period Spanish. I’m always there first. I take a seat toward the back. She’s always one of the last to come in. She looks for me, smiles, waggles her fingertips and takes a seat in the first row, even though there’s usually an empty seat beside me.

I thought today might be different. I
thought she might come back to the seat beside me. She didn’t. Everything was the same: look for me, smile, waggle, first row. Well, what did I expect? Did I expect her to rush back and flop into my lap? Did I think she’d be hauling around a big sign saying WILL KISSED ME LAST NIGHT?

Stupid me, maybe I did, because I kept turning corners all day, half expecting to bump into her, smiling, maybe winking, shyly/slyly saying something. Instead of thinking about Spanish and physics and English, my head ran imaginary conversations:

Her: Hi.

Me: Hi.

Her: Nice time last night.

Me: Yeah.

Her: I didn’t sleep much.

Me: Me neither.

Her: I kept thinking about…

Me: What?

Her (sly grin): You know.

Me: Yeah.

Her: Know what I wish?

Me: What?

Her: I wish a whole year passed already and this is Valentine’s Day again.

Me: Yeah.

Her: So when are you going to kiss me again?

Lunchtime—not the one in my head but the real one—was a dud. She talked to me. She talked to BT. She talked to the other kids at the table. She didn’t send me any special, secret smiles. No winks. No mention of Valentine’s Day. No leading questions to the others, like, “So, what did
you
guys do last night?”

Nothing.

So after lunch I started asking myself leading questions. Like,
Did Mi-Su say anything to BT about last night?
Like,
What?

Suddenly I wanted to check out BT for clues. I tried to remember. Was he looking at me funny today? Did he seem a little frosty? I couldn’t check him out now because he took another half-day. When lunch was over, instead of going to his next class, he just kept
walking right on out of school.

I started running a new conversation in my head:

Her: So, what did you do last night?

Him: Nothing. Hung at home. Read. You?

Her: Went to Smedley.

Him: At night?

Her: Yeah. With Will.

Him (taken aback): Our Will? Will Tuppence?

Her: No, Will Shakespeare.

Him: Wha’d you do?

Her: Drank hot chocolate. Looked at the stars. He brought his telescope.

Him: What else?

Her: He kissed me.

Him: Did you kiss him back?

Her: I guess you could say that.

Him: Did you like it?

Her: I guess you could say that.

Him: Do you love him? Is that what it is now, Will and Mi-Su forever?

Her (laughs): Hey—the place. The night. The stars. How could you
not
kiss somebody?

Him: What about us? You, me, the star
party? Was it as good as that?

Her (sly grin): Wouldn’t
you
like to know?

By last class I was a mess. Did she? Didn’t she? And then school was over and I was heading for the exit when I felt someone squeeze my hand. She was rushing past me, saying, “Gotta run!” I knew she was heading for the auditorium and tryouts for
The Music Man
. I felt that squeeze all the way home. I feel it now. It says everything.
Yes!

PD148

I
was right: the world
has
changed. I’m just not sure exactly how.

We were at Mi-Su’s for Monopoly. I went over early. I figured we could fit in a little alone-time together. And so who answers the door? BT! He was already there. He’s never early. Late is the only thing he ever is. That’s his middle name: Late. BLT, I call him sometimes.

Words jammed in my head:
Why are you early? Do you know about me and Mi-Su the other night? What did she say to you? What’s going on here?
The words that came out were: “You’re early.”

“So are you,” he said. He reached for the pizza boxes I carried. “Gimme. I’m hungry.”

An hour later BT went up to the bathroom and Mi-Su and I found ourselves alone. At first neither of us said a word. I snuck a glance at her. She was counting her money. Finally I reached out and touched her hand with the tip of my finger and said, “Hi.” Her head came up with that dazzling smile. She did the same fingertip thing to my hand. “Hi.” And suddenly everything was okay. Perfect.

“How did the tryouts go?” I said.

“Good.”

“Did you make it?”

“Everybody makes it. It’s just a question of what role you get.”

“What role do you want?”

“Well, every girl wants to be Marian.”

“Who’s that?”

“The female lead. The librarian. She gets to sing all the great songs.”

“That’ll be you.”

She laughed. “No, it won’t be me. It’ll be some senior. Probably Jen Willard. I’ll be in the chorus. I’ll be happy.”

And then BT came back and resumed buying up railroads and “wheelin’ and dealin’,” mortgaging to the hilt, went broke and on his next move landed on Chance. Picked a card. Advance to Illinois Avenue. He slid his thimble down to Illinois, which I owned. At this point I only had two houses on it, so all he owed me was $300, but it might as well have been three million. I said, “Three hundred,” and Mi-Su burst out laughing.

“What?” I said.

“You,” she said. “The way you said it.”

Already I didn’t like how this was going.

“How many ways are there to say three hundred?”

She laughed again. “I don’t know. You say it so…casual. So businessy. Like you expect him to pay it. Like you don’t know he’s totally broke.”

I turned to BT. I tried to sound as mournful as possible. “I regret to inform you, sir, that a rental fee in the amount of three hundred dollars is now due.”