The Cupcake Queen (10 page)

“Wait,” Tally says. She reaches into her backpack and pulls out some green fabric. “Here,” she says, balling it up and tossing it to me. I catch it and unfold it, realizing it’s a T-shirt. My own drawing is staring up at me. I flip it over. RPS FOR THE ARK is written across the back in letters that look like they came from an old typewriter. I smile at the shirt and then at Tally.

“I’ll be right back,” I say. I hear Gram’s voice when I’m about halfway up the stairs. I know she’s talking loud enough so that I’ll overhear.

“Maybe now she’ll stop feeling so sorry for herself,” she says.

I feel heat on my cheeks, but this time it’s not because I’m embarrassed or sad, but because I’m mad. The problem is, I can’t figure out whether I’m mad at Gram for saying it or mad at myself because she’s right.

 

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tally asks, slowly plucking apart a cattail she picked when we crossed the bridge into town. Tiny fluffs of seed float up from her fingers as we walk. “Sometimes it helps,” she says when I don’t answer. I want to talk to her, but I don’t know where to start. Do I tell her that my parents are communicating only through me and attorneys now? Do I tell her they’re selling our apartment? Do I tell her my biggest fear, that it isn’t going to be “fine”?

“Looks like it’s going to rain,” Tally says. I look up and see the heavy clouds pushing down on us.

“Perfect,” I say.

Tally misses the tone of my voice or just chooses to ignore it. “I know, right?” she says with a smile. “The rain is going to keep everyone inside at lunch. We’re going to make a killing.”

“Tally, what are you talking about?”

“The T-shirts,” she says. “
Your
T-shirts. They go on sale today.” She pulls the last clump of seeds out of the cattail and tosses them into the air. The wind catches them, sending them up into the trees. She puts her hand on my arm and stops, making me stop, too. “Do you know how to do it?” she asks.

“Um, yeah,” I say. “Selling T-shirts? I think I can manage that.”

“No.” She puts her hand out in a fist. “RPS.” She quickly runs through the three options. “I can teach you.” I squint at her, trying to figure out if she’s serious. She just smiles at me. “Really,” she says. “A lot of people just think it’s luck.”

“I think
most
people do,” I say.

“Well, that’s where
most
people are wrong,” she says. “Here, hold your hand out.” I make a fist and put it up near hers. “Okay,” she says. “Remember, you throw on four.” I keep watching her face. We’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the school, and people have to squeeze around us, but Tally doesn’t seem to notice. “Ready?” she asks. I nod. We pump our fists three times and then I leave mine closed. Tally has her hand flat, palm down. “Nice,” she says. “Rock is an aggressive first throw.” I look back up at her face, trying to predict when she’s going to start laughing. “Okay, let’s see what else you got.” I put my fist out again; this time I form scissors. Tally has her hand in a fist. She smiles and puts her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. “I can teach you,” she says. “It’s not hard.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. We start walking again. “I mean, it’s pretty simple, right? It’s not like there’s any strategy,” I say.

“Okay, then,” Tally says. “Then how did I just beat you twice?”

“Um, luck?”

She sighs loudly. I follow her up the steps and into the side door of the school. We stop at her locker, where she puts away her backpack and gets out her books for first period. The can of lard is still there, still perched on top of her books. She pushes her locker shut with a click and turns toward me.

“I knew you were going to throw rock first. It’s the easiest and the most obvious move. It’s also the safest move for a rookie.”

I shrug. “Maybe,” I say.

“Before the second round, I said: ‘Let’s see what else you got.’ So, of course you aren’t going to throw rock again. The next obvious throw is scissors.”

“Why not paper?” I ask.

“Because I just threw paper. Scissors was the only move that neither of us had used yet. Plus, paper is the hardest move. You have to twist your wrist and throw at the same time.”

“Why can’t you just do this?” I ask, putting my hand out flat with my thumb up.

“Vertical paper is a no-no in professional play.”

I’m still trying to find the irony, trying to find the teasing in her eyes, but it’s not there. “Okay, Tally,” I say, smiling. “Will you teach me?”

“Of course,” she says. The first bell rings, making me jump slightly. “We’re going to be late,” she says. “Meet me in front of the cafeteria at lunch.” I nod and start walking toward my locker. “Wait,” she says. “I almost forgot.” Tally rummages in her backpack and pulls out two bars wrapped in cellophane. “Here.” She hands them to me. “Lunch.” I flip them over. “It’s pemmican.”

“It’s what?” I ask.

“Trust me,” Tally says, and then disappears into the crowd of kids pushing past. I sigh and look at the bars she gave me. Some sort of energy bars. From the label it looks like they might have been the
first
energy bars, way before PowerBars, but then again maybe they’re just purposely retro. I stuff the bars into the front pocket of my hoodie.
Trust her.
I pull up on the latch of my locker.

The smell hits me as I open the door. There on top of my books is a plastic plate. I have to step back to catch my breath. It’s one of my cupcakes—at least it used to be. The smell is coming from what’s been stuck in the middle of it. Where there used to be an icing fish jumping on the end of a fisherman’s line, now there’s an actual fish. A small one, but it’s been in there all night. I take out the plate and drop it into the trash can at the end of the hall. As I walk back to my locker to get out my now smelly books, I hear it behind me. I don’t even bother to turn around to see who it is. It doesn’t really matter who’s laughing. Whether I have to convince my mom that we need to go back or I have to move into my dad’s new place, in a few weeks I’ll be gone and Hog’s Hollow will just be a distant nightmare.

chapter eleven

What do you think?” Tally is sitting on a folding chair behind a long table just outside the cafeteria. Stacks of RPS T-shirts teeter in front of her and Blake. Tally had the shirts made in three different colors: blue, orange, and olive.

“They’re awesome,” I say. “People have been coming up to me all morning and asking about my shirt.”

“Did you tell them we’d be selling them at lunch?” she asks. I nod. I step to the side to make room for a group of girls. They finally pick shirts, all getting blue.

“Thank you for your business,” Blake says, taking their money. He shoves the bills into a shoe box. There are several bars of pemmican, just like the ones Tally gave me, on the table in front of him. He takes a bite of one and makes a face, but he swallows it and smiles in Tally’s direction.

Looking beyond them into the cafeteria, I can see that a bunch of kids have pulled the RPS T-shirts over their own shirts. Apparently Tally was right. A lot of people are into RPS.

Except for Charity’s friends. One of the Lindseys walks by with Charlotte, very obviously ignoring the merchandise.

“I told you it would rain,” Tally says. “Now everyone has to come inside for lunch.”

“How did you get them to let you sell them here?” I ask.

Blake rolls his eyes. “She had photos of the animals at the ARK.”

I raise my eyebrows at Tally.

“I did what I had to,” she says with a smile. Then she picks up a bar of pemmican and takes a bite. She is only slightly more convincing about its taste appeal than Blake was. I start to ask again what’s going on, but Tally turns her attention to a group of soccer players making a mess of a stack of extra-extra-large shirts.

“Hey.” A familiar voice makes me turn. Marcus picks up one of the shirts and holds it up. He flips it over to look at the back.

“Penny designed them,” Tally says, winking at me.

He looks over at me and smiles. “They’re cool,” he says.

“Oh, hi, Marcus.” Charity pushes herself between us, actually elbowing me slightly to get me to back up. Her friends manage to create a human barrier between me and Marcus. The way they move, it’s like they are a pack of wolves, circling their prey. Charity looks at the shirt Marcus is holding as if it’s covered in mold.

“Aren’t these cool?” Marcus says.

She smiles and touches his arm. “That color looks good on you,” she says, sidestepping his question.

Marcus hands two fives to Blake. Then he pulls the shirt over his head. Charity’s right. The color does look good on him. He picks up his notebook and lunch. “See you around,” he says, and I think he means everyone. Then, just before he walks into the cafeteria, he adds one word: “Penny.”

Charity tries very hard not to react.

“Are you buying, or just looking?” Tally asks.

“Neither,” Charity says.

Tally takes another bite of the bar in her hand and places it on the table so that the wrapper is faceup. I notice she positions it so that Charity can see the label. With the little puffin or whatever bird is right above the words ALL NATURAL. NO PRESERVATIVES. Charity looks at it for a long moment before Charlotte says, “What’s RPS?”

“Ridiculous, Pathetic, Stupid,” Charity says.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors,” Tally says over her.

Charlotte looks at her for a moment. “As in the game?” Tally nods.

“See?” Charity says. “Stupid.”

“The shirts
are
kind of cool . . .” Charlotte says tentatively.

Charity glares at her. “I guess, if you like
old
things,” she says. She turns and smirks at me.

“Vintage,” Tally says.

“Faux vintage,” Blake says. This even makes Charlotte smile, but Charity still looks like she’s been sucking on a lemon. A lemon Jolly Rancher maybe.

“Are you done looking at this stuff?” Charity asks. Charlotte puts the T-shirt down slowly, but even after she lets go, she keeps looking back at it. Charlotte and the three Lindseys follow Charity into the cafeteria.

“Okay, I know why she hates me, but what does she have against you guys?” I ask.

Blake shrugs. “She hates whimsy.”

“Maybe she wanted a hundred percent cotton,” Tally says.

“No, really,” I say.

Tally sighs and looks past me. “Remember how Blake said I was banned from Hog’s Hollow Days?” I nod and see Blake smirking. “Remember how I also said you weren’t the only one dragged here against her will?” I nod again. “Well, let’s just say I was pretty angry when I first moved here.”

“Pretty angry?” Blake asks.

“Okay, I was really angry. I just got mad. Mad at my dad, at myself. I got mad at everything. I mean, at least until I just decided to make the best of it while I’m here.”

Blake looks at his shoes and pushes his hands a little deeper into his front pockets. Something has pulled the smile from his face, and I wonder if it’s just the thought of Tally leaving. And what she’s saying is a little too close to what I know I should be doing. Suddenly I feel like the star of a bad public service announcement. This one is titled Just Deal with It.

Tally does her half smile and elbows Blake, who shakes himself, as if he was somewhere else and the elbow brought him back. “You tell her,” she says.

Blake takes a breath. “Okay, you know how every female between the ages of twelve and eighteen in the tricounty area wants to be Hog Queen?”

“Not every,” Tally says.

“Well, last year, the H.O.G.—”

“The Hog’s Hollow Organizational Group,” Tally says.

“Shouldn’t that be the H.H.O.G.?” I ask.

“We are not really talking about higher-thinking people here,” Tally says.

“Anyway,” Blake says, “the H.O.G. decides to do away with the talent portion of the pageant. All of a sudden Tally, the new girl none of us knew, is everywhere, telling everyone that we are ‘subjugating our young girls to a male-dominated paradigm. ’ ” Blake turns to Tally. “Is that right?”

“Something like that,” Tally says.

“Turns out that once they decided to take out the talent part, it became just a beauty contest, not a scholarship pageant. Anyway, she called all these feminist groups, and suddenly instead of a rehearsal, there was a protest.”

“It wasn’t just that I was looking to start a fight,” Tally says. “I mean, I really do think beauty contests are degrading to women. No offense to your mom.”

“I agree,” I say. And the weird thing is, the mom I know would agree, too.

“Word got out that the reason the H.O.G. was trying to get rid of the talent portion was because of the chairman,” Blake says.

“Chairperson,” Tally says.

“Who was the chair
person
?” I ask.

“Mrs. Wharton.” Blake grins. “Turns out Charity doesn’t really have any talents.”

I look into the cafeteria. Charity is sitting right next to Marcus, and I mean
right
next to him. Like if she sat any closer, she’d be sitting in his lap. She laughs at something he says and puts her hand on his arm. She leans toward him a bit, and I can feel my face heating up. It’s then that she looks directly at me and smiles.

“She’s pretty good at being mean,” I say.

“She’d get crowned Hog Queen for sure if all she had to do was look pretty and be mean,” Tally says. She pulls the rest of the pemmican bar out and stares at it for a moment, as if she’s having an argument with it in her head. I guess the bar wins, because she puts it back down without taking a bite.

“So are you going to tell me?” I ask. I gesture toward the half-eaten bar on the table.

“I’ll give you a hint: read the ingredients.”

I pull one of the pemmican bars out of my pocket and read the wrapper.
Dried fruit, organic flour, lard.
What’s with Tally and lard? I can’t ask her, because now she’s helping two guys in backward baseball caps find the right size shirt.