The Karma Club (11 page)

By the time I squeeze out the window and make it back around the house, Angie and Jade are at the front door with Mrs. Campbell. I wait behind a giant pine tree and listen as Heather’s mother
rambles on about something and then finally says, “Well, I hope I was able to help.”

“Oh, you certainly did,” I hear Angie respond pleasantly as she steps off the front stoop. “Thanks again.”

As soon as the front door closes, I emerge from behind the tree and hurry toward the car. Once we’re inside, I screech out of the Campbells’ driveway faster than you can say “maximum-strength Myzaclin.”

No one speaks for a good two minutes as we drive in mutually stunned silence. Finally, once we’re out on the main road, Angie says, “Well, that was probably the most excitement I’ve had in a long time. I think I just lost ten pounds in ten minutes.”

I stop the car at a red light and turn toward her, prepared to let all my anxiety and pent-up fear just flow out of me. But as soon as I look at her, I burst out laughing. Jade and Angie exchange cautious glances but then quickly join in until finally the three of us are giggling uncontrollably in the car.

“You should have seen Angie’s face when I told her the Myzaclin was green!”

More laughter.

As I giggle, I think about the green acne cream that is now floating somewhere in the pipes underneath Heather Campbell’s house and the green-dyed Crisco and hair conditioner that now sits in its place. “Definitely worth it,” I say with a smile.

Jade catches her breath. “Definitely. And now it’ll only be a matter of time before people start calling her Butter Face.”

The light turns green and I step on the gas, wrinkling up my forehead in confusion as I look at Jade in the rearview mirror.
“Why would they do that? It’s not like anyone’s gonna
know
what we replaced her prescription with.”

“No,” she replies. “Don’t you know that saying ‘She’s a total butter face’?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“You know, as in ‘She’s got a nice body,
but her
face . . .’ ”

Okay, so it’s
not like I expected to come to school the next day and find the entire universe turned upside down. An alternate reality in which Heather Campbell (sporting at least one very unbecoming facial blemish) is no longer the most popular girl in school and Mason is off crying in the corner somewhere. I know that these kinds of things take time.

But what I definitely didn’t expect to see was Mason and Heather making out in front of her locker. Not because that’s so entirely tacky, not to mention, um, hello, eighth grade, but because I thought that we had put an end to Heather and Mason yesterday. Or at least put the wheels in motion to set them down the steady track that would lead them to the end.

But these are definitely not the signs of a couple on the verge of a split. They’re actually quite the opposite. And the whole thing is making me just the slightest bit nauseated.

I mean, from the way they’re acting right now, you would think
that nothing even happened yesterday. That Catherine Linton doesn’t even exist. Well, technically she doesn’t, but you know what I mean.

“What’s the deal?” Angie says at lunchtime as the three of us sit there, practically staring at the table where Mason and Heather are in the middle of another disgusting public display of affection.

I turn my head away from the disturbing image and sulk in my seat. “Yeah, seriously. Mason always hated PDAs when we were dating. Now he’s practically the spokesperson for them.”

“But, I mean,
why
are they still together, acting like nothing has happened?” Angie reiterates. “Yesterday she looked like she was ready to throw him off a cliff.”

I sigh and look down at my carefully made peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Suddenly, I don’t have much of an appetite. I push it away and fold my arms across my chest.

Jade digs her fork into a questionable-looking plate of mac and cheese from the cafeteria. “Well, I can tell you what I heard today in second period, but you’re not going to like it.”

Angie and I both focus our attention on Jade, our eyes wide with curiosity.

Jade nods, like she was afraid she might get that reaction, and says, “I overheard someone say that Mason totally sweet-talked her out of being mad. Went to find her at Jenna’s house with flowers, apology speeches, the works.”

I can feel the tears start to sting the corners of my eyes. “I can’t believe that,” I shriek, causing a few people from nearby tables to turn and stare. I lower my voice a few decibels. “She gets flowers
and prepared apology speeches after a stupid e-mail exchange and a text message, and I get radio silence for a week followed by a lame I-want-my-stuff-back visit after a full-blown, catch-’em-in-the-act betrayal. That’s total crap!”

Angie and Jade exchange uneasy glances. Clearly, they weren’t prepared for this outburst. “Don’t worry,” Jade says gently, reaching across the table and patting my hand. “He’ll get what’s coming to him. Remember? You said it yourself.”

“Yeah, but it’s not working. Look at them!”

“We just need to think of more things to do,” Angie says. “Maybe e-mails and a text message weren’t enough.”

I bow my head, dejected. “Yeah, maybe.”

“We’ll brainstorm on it more tonight,” Jade suggests. “When we finalize the details for Operation Cross-Dresser.”

All of our missions are given code names. Mostly so we can talk about them at school without the risk of anyone figuring out what we’re up to. But also because Operation Cross-Dresser or Operation Butter Face just sounds much better and more exciting than something like “Tonight we’re gonna replace Heather’s acne medication with Crisco.”

Although, that one does sound pretty hilarious.

Once we are gathered in Jade’s bedroom after school that day, I clear my throat to get Jade’s and Angie’s attention and say, “Before we get started tonight, I have a little surprise for both of you.”

Jade grabs a slice of pizza from the delivery box sitting on the floor and takes a bite. “What kind of surprise?”

From inside my backpack, I remove three jewelry boxes gift-wrapped in shiny silver paper and topped off with bright pink bows. I hand one to Jade, one to Angie, and the other I hold on my lap for myself.

I ordered the gifts online the night we formed the Karma Club, and they had finally arrived in the mail yesterday.

“What is it?” Jade asks as she holds the box up to her ear like she’s expecting to hear a ticking bomb inside.

“Just a small token of our alliance,” I reply.

Angie tears the wrapping off of hers first and gasps when she opens the box and peers inside. “Oh my God!”

“Don’t tell me,” Jade yells, shielding her eyes from Angie’s unwrapped gift. She stops shaking hers, carefully removes the wrapping paper, and opens the box to reveal a sterling silver charm bracelet inside. “Wow! Maddy, it’s beautiful!”

“I thought you guys would like them,” I say.

I used up the very last remaining cent in my bank account to buy three identical charm bracelets with, as of right now, the same lonely charm hanging from each of them.

“I
love
it!” Angie exclaims.

“I figured we could add to them every time we successfully accomplished one of our Karmic goals,” I explain as Angie and Jade remove the bracelets from their boxes and admire them. I pick up the box in my lap and, despite the fact that I already know exactly what’s inside, rip off the wrapping paper like a little girl expecting a new bicycle on Christmas morning. I remove my matching bracelet from the box and clasp it around my wrist.

Jade quickly follows suit and then holds her wrist up in front of her face so she can examine it further.

“What does this charm mean?” Angie asks, fingering the small half-black, half-white circle that hangs from her bracelet.

“It’s called a Yin-Yang,” I explain expertly, trying to sound exactly like Rajiv, my Karma guru. “It’s a symbol for harmony and balance. And it’s there to remind us that for every bad thing that happens, there is an equal and opposite good thing waiting just around the corner. All we have to do is find it.”

“That’s awesome,” Angie replies. “Did you learn that at Camp Karma?”

I laugh. “I did actually.”

We admire the bracelets for another ten minutes, discussing what the perfect charms would be for each of the four missions we already have planned, and then Jade reminds us that we have to go over the final details for our payback mission against Ryan Feldman this Saturday.

I pull our official Karma Club notebook out of my backpack and flip open to the next blank page so I can record the details of our discussion. And although we make significant progress on Operation Cross-Dresser, the rest of the night unfortunately yields no results pertaining to our little problem with Mason and Heather. Namely that they’re still together. Many suggestions are thrown out there and then discarded because they violate our strict rule of anonymity. We can’t do anything that might cause Mason to suspect I’m behind it. Like put roses in his locker with a card from Catherine Linton. Because Mason knows that I’m the only other person who has his locker combination besides the school administration staff, so he’d easily connect the dots to me.

We also think about just sending more e-mails and text messages but quickly rule that option out because whatever
Mason is doing to convince Heather he’s innocent is clearly working.

So by the end of the night we are back to square one. Meaning that for the next three days before the weekend arrives I am forced to watch Mason and Heather make a spectator sport out of their loving affectionate relationship. Which I think in some countries is probably considered cruel and unusual punishment.

From the Official Notebook of the Karma Club

Karmic Beneficiary #3

Name:
Ryan Feldman

Background:
Ex-boyfriend of Angie Harper. Starting pitcher for Colonial High’s varsity baseball team. Currently dating Leslie Gellar, head cheerleader

Universal Imbalance:
Sold out club member during junior prom drinking fiasco in order to preserve his own reputation

Valued Possession:
His spot on the varsity team

When Saturday afternoon
arrives, I manage to put my obsession with breaking up Mason and Heather on hold so that I can focus on our current mission against Ryan Feldman.

At one o’clock, Angie and I are back in the mall food court with Jade while she’s on her lunch break to discuss last-minute details about today’s operation.

“Are you sure she got the postcard?” I ask Jade as I pop a French fry into my mouth.

Jade sips on her soda and nods. “Definitely,” she says after swallowing. “I sent it out a few days ago, and I overheard Leslie mention it yesterday when she was at Ryan’s locker.”

Fortunately for the Karma Club, Jade’s locker happens to be exactly three lockers down from Ryan’s. This proved to be a problem at the beginning of the year because Angie refused to go anywhere near it in fear of running into her dreaded ex. So we were always forced to congregate around her locker. But lately
it’s proven to be more of an asset than a liability because Jade has been able to overhear several of Ryan Feldman’s conversations over the past two weeks. One of which was between Ryan and his girlfriend, who was planning to drag him with her on one of her infamous shopping excursions this weekend. Ryan wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea, but after Leslie whined incessantly for several minutes, complaining that he never takes any interest in the things she likes to do, he eventually gave in and agreed to come to the mall with her today.

This invaluable information then provided the foundation for our mission. And during Jade’s next shift, she snuck into the manager’s office and “borrowed” one of the 50 percent off anything in the store promotional postcards that the manager only sends out to special customers. We then addressed the postcard to Leslie Gellar and filled in the expiration date with today’s date. So if Leslie wanted to get her 50 percent off Eve’s Closet merchandise, today would be the day to do it.

“Don’t worry,” Jade assures me as she scrunches up the wrapper of her sandwich. “Leslie will be coming in the store today, and she’s bringing Ryan.” Then Jade launches into an imitation that she refers to as her
Godfather
voice and says, “It was an offer she couldn’t refuse.”

“Okay, good,” I reply. “So what do Angie and I have to do?”

“Well,” Jade responds thoughtfully, “Angie has to be completely out of sight. If she is in any way connected to the crime scene, he’ll immediately suspect something is up.”

Angie nods. “She’s right. I’ll hang out in the store across the way and text you when I see them enter Eve’s Closet.”

“Good idea,” Jade says, pointing at Angie with authority, like
she’s presiding over a board meeting at a Fortune 500 corporation. Then she turns to me. “And you. You can be on watch in the store. I’ll need an extra pair of eyes in there. I still have to do my job, so I won’t be able to keep tabs on Ryan the entire time.”

“No problem.”

“But try to stay out of their line of sight. Leslie knows who you are, and if she recognizes you and makes a big deal out of seeing you, you’ll immediately look suspicious after everything goes down.”

“Got it,” I say.

Jade checks her watch. “Okay, I better get back. They agreed to meet at the mall at two, so both of you should finish up here and get in position as soon as possible in case they get here early. We want to be ready.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m ducking around the racks of bras and panties, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, when my phone vibrates. I pull it out of my pocket and glance at the text message on the screen. It’s from Angie.

Entering now

My eyes dart toward the entrance of the store, and I see Leslie Gellar and Ryan Feldman coming in my direction. I quickly turn my head and open whatever drawer is closest to me, pretending to be very interested in locating an underwire, full-coverage bra in my size. Which, judging by the drawer that I’ve opened, is somewhere between a 36D and a 42DD. Great.