Sticks & Stones (19 page)

“I know,” Jeg mumbled.

“And it kinda seemed like you were telling him about the notes before we left on the scavenger hunt. Were you?”

“No!” She pushed her scarf out of her face. “Of course not. I was just telling him I was glad I got you for a roommate. And that I was gonna miss him.” Her face reddened. “I'm really sorry, Elyse. For being with him. I just wanted to go out with someone. Ami and everyone told me I should because they all had boyfriends, so I needed one, too, and he was interested. I thought I would be with Kevin forever, but I guess not.”

We pushed open the door to our cabin and started flinging off our winter clothes, sending them flying in every direction. The heat from the fire Mom had made in our cabin earlier felt amazing.

I watched Jeg's stuff scatter. All of her winter clothes were different than they used to be. When we were little kids—and even up until last year—she had the craziest snow stuff I'd ever seen. She'd wear zebra-striped snow pants, rainbow coats, mittens with sequins, the works.

But now all of her stuff was so plain, so regular. So not Jeg.

A funny feeling crept up in my gut again, and I knew it wanted me to come clean about the part I had played in her breakup with Kevin. Even though I hadn't
really
been responsible for them breaking up. Even though she didn't really deserve my apology. I was going to do it anyway.

“Jeg,” I said, “it's kind of a long story, but I sort of mentioned to Kevin that it might be a good idea to break up with you. It was one of the mystery notes that suggested it, actually, but it was my choice to do it, and I want you to know that I'm really sorry.”

I didn't mention that the writer of this particular mysterious note wasn't so mysterious anymore. I'd already messed up one of her relationships; I wasn't going to say any more about this one. All I could do was hope she'd figure Liam out before he could make her sad.

I slipped off my sweatshirt and threw it on the bottom bunk. Before I knew it, I was down to my very bottom layer, a thin dark gray T-shirt, and she could see the giant
OKAY
trailing down my arm. For some reason, I wasn't worried about it anymore.

“Whoa,” Jeg said, looking at me. I looked back at her, and maybe it was the weird shadows in the cabin, but I could've sworn that our Best Friends necklace was tucked under her shirt.

She turned away from me, slipped on her pajamas, and climbed into the top bunk. “I haven't seen those words in a while. You look really cool!” Then she sighed. “It's okay, El. I told Kevin I kissed Pierre, and that's why he broke up with me. It had nothing to do with you. It's super weird that one of Mr. Todd's notes would ask you to do that, though. What does the principal care who's going out with who?”

“Dunno,” I said. “Maybe he really wants to be a matchmaker instead of a principal.”

Jeg giggled. “He could get his own TV show!
Middle School Matchmaker.
”

I laughed and took a happy deep breath. I still wasn't Jeg's biggest fan in the world, but there was something nice about knowing that she wasn't mad at me. She may have said more stuff after that, but I'm not quite sure because I fell asleep the second my head touched the pillow.

*   *   *

Everyone was extra nice to me after I'd survived getting lost on the scavenger hunt. The next day, Jeg invited me to sit with her and the Loud Crowd at breakfast, and I did, and when Snotty Ami looked over at Hannah B. at the next table and asked us, “Do you think she wears a bra because she needs one or because she wants one?” Jeg very politely turned to me and said, “Elyse, what do you think?” I didn't really know what the right answer was, and I didn't want to say anything mean about Hannah. So I just kind of smiled and shrugged, and that must have been the right answer because Snotty Ami was all “Yeah” and they smiled at me like I was doing a good job.

Then I hung out with Hannah, Hannah, and Olivia, and I could just relax and talk about normal things like cupcakes and books and not have to worry if I was getting answers right or not.

After that, I sat by the fireplace for a while, all by myself, and I didn't even sneak off like I usually do at lunch. I just told people I wanted to be alone for a little bit, and they said okay. I still don't know if they thought it was weird or not. Maybe they did. But that's their opinion, not mine.

It felt good to think like that.

Then, during the trust fall, people were actually fighting over who got to be my partner. I picked Nice Andy.

“You're so awesome and cool!” he told me before he fell into my arms.

“Thanks!” I said. Then I said “Oof!” and caught him, though I stumbled backward a little bit (okay, a lot) in the process.
AWESOME
and
COOL
were still on my arms, right where he had put them, but they seemed to be staying put whether he repeated them or not.

After the trust fall, Mr. Todd made a huge deal about presenting me with my official Explorer Leader poster in front of everybody. It was weird—the poster had seemed so important before, but I had almost forgotten about it until he unrolled it and waved it up in the air like a big flag.

And there it was. My face. Surrounded by all the good words I'd wanted so bad.
FUNNY. SMART. HELPFUL. FRIENDLY. CREATIVE. ORGANIZED. GREAT LEADER.
They went on forever.

The poster looked exactly like I'd hoped it would, but there was something confusing about it. All these words, these amazing qualities that I thought being Explorer Leader would help me to be—well, wasn't I a lot of them before?

Actually, not to toot my own horn or anything, but wasn't I
all
of them before?

I smiled and took the poster from Mr. Todd as everyone clapped. Suddenly everything was so obvious: the mystery notes, being Explorer Leader—they were great, but they didn't magically turn me into the girl on the poster with the good words swirling around her head. She was the person I already was. Everything else just helped me notice.

And with the poster tucked in my arms and the words echoing in my mind, I knew I'd never forget.

“I wish I had one of those,” Snotty Ami said in a quiet voice as the clapping died down. I glanced at her over my shoulder and saw that she hadn't said that to a friend—she'd said it to the ground. Her eyes refused to meet anyone else's. She didn't look nearly as cool as she usually did when she was surrounded by everybody. Now she just looked normal. Maybe even sort of sad.

She looked like a girl who just really needed some compliments.

I whispered something to Mr. Todd, and he nodded. Then he disappeared into a cabin for a minute and came back with a bunch of markers and a thick stack of blue papers.

“Spontaneous new activity, courtesy of our Explorer Leader,” he said, and I quickly sat everybody down at the picnic tables and explained it. I couldn't believe an idea like this had just popped into my mind, and that I'd been brave enough to tell it to Mr. Todd and now we were really doing it.

Actually, maybe I
could
believe it.

Ten minutes later, we were done. The other posters weren't as big and fancy as my poster, but what they said was more important than what they looked like. Everybody put their names at the top of their papers and left them on the tables, and then everyone walked around and wrote compliments on them. Now everybody had their own mini posters, filled with a bunch of good words from a bunch of different people.

It was so fun looking at all the papers that I accidentally left my poster behind when it was time to go have a snack inside.

Snotty Ami—or maybe just regular Ami, actually—ran up to me, holding it.

“You forgot this,” she said in a totally regular, non-snotty kind of way.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Yeah, thanks to you, too,” she said.

And she smiled.

 

30

OLIVIA AND THE WORDS

I glanced over at the adults. They all huddled together and talked in low, serious voices like Mom and Dad did when they had something important to discuss and didn't want me to hear.

After the adults had chatted for a little while, they announced that we would be leaving the campsite a day early because the weather conditions were not acceptable enough for additional outdoor activities, which was just fine with me. Thanks to Minne-snow-ta, we got to spend a whole day at the Mall of America, the backup plan I had helped choose. Between the shopping, the amusement park, the aquarium, the movie theater, and the food court, there was something fun for everybody.

At the very end of the day, Olivia, Hannah, Hannah, and I were resting on a bench when I noticed a mega-cute purple sweater hanging on a mannequin in some store's window display.

“Let's go in!” I said, and we did. I grabbed a sweater from the pile next to the mannequin and headed straight for the dressing room. We all went in the one huge room together, and I was so excited to be shopping with my friends, getting ready to try on a super-cute sweater, that I didn't even think about the fact that when I peeled off my pink zip-up hoodie, my arms would be there, exposed, in plain sight under the gross artificial store lights.
Whoops.

Hannah and Hannah's mouths dropped all the way to the floor. I was having so much fun that I totally forgot to be careful with my arms. Hannah and Hannah hadn't seen them in almost a year.

But Olivia hadn't seen them ever.

For a second, she stared at them like she'd seen an alien or a ghost or a mouse running across the mall. She made one of those faces like she was trying to decide if she should scream or just keep standing there with her mouth hanging open.

I looked at my arms. They really didn't look bad at all. In fact, they looked kind of amazing. I had
OKAY
running down my whole left arm, and
AWESOME
and
COOL
were on my right. Plus, there were all the words from the poster. Not trying to brag or anything, but I thought I actually looked maybe more fantastic than I ever had. Now
FANTASTIC
was there, too. And I felt incredible—no itchiness at all.

Finally, Olivia spoke. “Are those, like, tattoos?” she asked, pointing, in case I had no idea what she was talking about. Yeah, right.

“Sort of,” I told her honestly. “It's a condition I've had since I was little. No one told you about it?”

She made a face like she was trying on a sweater that was way too tight. “Well, sorta … I dunno. I heard some rumors, but I figured if it was real, you'd tell me about it yourself.”

“Oh.” Now I felt bad. What had I been so afraid of? Olivia wasn't just any old person who didn't know about CAV. She was my
friend
. My real friend who hadn't ditched me for the Loud Crowd even though she totally could have. “I should have told you,” I said. “Basically, whenever someone calls me a name—or even if I call myself one—they show up on my arms and legs. The nice ones are great, but the bad ones are itchy.”

“Whoa,” she said in a quiet voice. She stared for a really long time.

“Whoa,” Hannah and Hannah repeated.

“Elyse,” Olivia said slowly. “This is, like, the coolest thing I've ever seen.”

“Really?” I leaned back so I could get a good look at Olivia. She looked like she really meant it and not like she was going to shout
Just kidding!
and burst out laughing. So that was a good sign.

“Sometimes they're not nice words like these,” I continued. “Sometimes they're really bad.”

“I think they're cool no matter what,” she said. “I was surprised at first, but I really think they're awesome.”

AWESOME
and
COOL
were already on me, but they felt extra good as I let out a huge breath I hadn't even noticed I'd been holding. It felt so good to hear her say that. I was
OKAY
with her or without her, but I'd rather be with her.

*   *   *

On the way back to the bus, Ami was being her usual noisy self.

“I had such a fab time at the mall,” she said loud enough so everyone in Minnesota could hear her. “I bought the cutest clothes. And I hung out with the coolest people. Like, no weirdos at all.”

She was probably saying that to me, but I barely heard. That's what happens when you're surrounded by your own friends and your own happy thoughts.

Before I could think about what I was doing, I broke away from Hector, Olivia, Andy, Layla, and JaShawn, walked up to Ami, and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Question,” I said.

Her face looked like she smelled something gross, but I ignored it and went on talking.

“Mr. Todd put me in charge of choosing some music to listen to on the way home, but I'm not sure what's most popular. I was thinking maybe you could decide.”

She glared at me for a second, but then her face softened. “Well, I am way better than you at knowing what's cool,” she said.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Sure. So you'll be in charge of it?”

“I'll be in charge of it,” she said.

“Thanks.”

I knew she liked getting her compliments—who wouldn't?—but maybe sometimes the words weren't enough. You couldn't just read them; you had to feel them, too. Mysterious notes, a fancy title, and a crazy wilderness adventure had helped me really understand my words. I couldn't give those things to Ami, but I could definitely give her control of the music.

As my friends and I boarded the bus, I glanced her way. She was talking to Mr. Todd and the bus driver, and she was grinning from ear to ear.

It was just music. But maybe, for her, it was a lot more.

 

31

SILLY

Dear Elyse,

I just got back from the trip, and it was awesome. But let's get down to business. You don't have that mu
ch time left in sixth grade, and this is what you need to do: