Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless (10 page)

Chapter 13

THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH $10,000

1. Get 20,000 candy bars when they’re two for a dollar.

2. Never have to beg your parents for gas money for the rest of high school.

3. Pay for half a semester at Harvard.

4. Buy a used car. (But you should definitely check if the driver’s-side door opens
first.)

5. Throw yourself one of those insane Sweet Sixteen parties like on TV.

Gabe is the first to recover. “What?”

“It’s just an estimate, but if today’s collection was any indication, it could have
been that much. It was at least a few thousand.”

“Are you kidding me?” Sammi half rises from her lotus position on her chair, then
sits again. “Do you know what I could do with ten thousand dollars?”

“If I had ten thousand dollars, I wouldn’t be working at this place, that’s for sure,”
Gabe says.

“Ten thousand dollars is still below the poverty line,” Micah reminds him.

“Yeah, but it’s a hell of a lot of pizza-and-beer money when you’re living in a dorm.”
Gabe rubs his hands together. “Unbelievable. Well, now you know for sure I didn’t
steal it because if I did, I would be gone right now.” He stands, reaches across the
table, and palms Micah’s head. “I swear on the head of Micah Yoder.”

Sammi smirks.

“I’d still work here,” Micah says. “I like it.”

Gabe makes a frustrated sound and drops back into his seat. “Of course you do. But
believe me, I’m only here because I have to be.”

“I’d still be here, too.” Sammi sighs. “Ten K would be nice, but it doesn’t get you
far in California.”

“What’s in California?” I ask.

“Anything,” she says. “Anything that isn’t this boring-ass town. The sun, for starters.
Doesn’t have to be California, even. I don’t care.”

Gabe nods slowly.

I look at Tyson. “What would you do with the money?” From driving him home, I know
he doesn’t exactly live in the wealthiest area.

“College,” he says without hesitation. “It’s all for college.”

I smile. “Me too. Do you know where you want to go?”

“State,” he says. “I want to be a veterinarian.”

My heart melts. As if he’s not already near perfect. “That’s amazing!” More words
threaten to bubble out of me, but for once I manage to control myself.

“Companion, Food, or Exotic?” Micah asks, which earns him more than one strange look.

“Dogs and cats, I guess.” Tyson looks embarrassed. “What is that? Pets?”

“Companion,” Micah says.

“I’m guessing you’re going to go to some kind of genius school?” Gabe asks him. “Harvard
or something?”

“Probably something more like MIT or CalTech,” Micah says. “I like the hard sciences
a lot.”

“I’m shocked,” Gabe says dryly.

“Not me,” I say. “I’d rather read a book than do math. Any day.”

“What about you, Zaina?” Gabe asks.

She shakes her head slightly. “I don’t know. I suppose I’ll find something I like
in college.”

“So you’re going?”

“My dad wants me to,” she says, then looks down with a slight laugh. “It’s unlike
him. So modern.”

“You don’t want to go?” asks Micah.

“No, I do.” She bites her lip. “I’m not sure what I want to study, though.”

“Why should you know?” Sammi asks. “The whole thing is ridiculous. They expect us
to decide what we’re going to do for the rest of our lives while we’re still in high
school. How do you know what you want to do when you don’t know what’s out there?
I don’t even get why they expect us to go to college right away. Wouldn’t it make
more sense to wait until you know what you want to do?”

“But I do want to go,” Zaina says firmly, making eye contact with Sammi. “For the
same reason I wanted a job.” Her voice softens to its usual level. “I don’t work for
the money—”

Tyson winces.

“—I work because I want to show my dad I can be independent without disappointing
him.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Yes. My parents—my father, really—didn’t want me to get a job. He doesn’t think it’s
proper for his daughters to work. None of his sisters worked when they were growing
up in Lebanon.”

“Ohhh, that’s where you’re from!” Micah looks like he’s just gotten an annoying splinter
out after hours of fussing at it.

Zaina’s beautiful, full mouth flattens into a line. “I’ve lived here since I was five
years old. I’m American.”

“Right, right.” Micah dismisses that. “I’ve just always wondered. You don’t have much
accent to go by.”

“I don’t have an accent at all!” she protests.

I want to laugh, but I don’t want to be the only one. I cover my mouth with one hand
and look at Tyson, who is smiling a lazy smile. Sammi’s face says it all, though.
She has one of her dark eyebrows raised, and a smirk of disbelief.

“Z, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve got an accent.”

“I do?” Zaina looks stunned.

We all make general noises of agreement.

“I had it narrowed down to the Middle East, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what
dialect,” Micah says. “I even watched videos on YouTube to try to pin it down. It
must be because you’ve lived here so long.”

Zaina stares at him. “You did that?”

“I was curious.”

She looks somewhere between horrified and flattered.

“It’s not very noticeable,” I add. It’s really not.

“But yeah,” Tyson says. “It’s there. Don’t worry, it’s kinda hot.”

My heart bottoms out. Tyson thinks Zaina is hot. Heat creeps up the back of my neck.
Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?

“Oh.” She presses her fingers to her lips.

No one says anything for a minute.

“You’re all staring at me!” she protests. “You’re making me self-conscious.”

I flick my eyes to the nearest non-Zaina thing I can find, landing on the clock. Time
is passing more quickly than I thought. I do a quick calculation to figure out how
long it’s been since my watch alarmed for my scheduled blood-sugar check.

I can live without knowing my blood sugar, but I’m going to need some food soon to
make sure it doesn’t get too low. A quick inventory of my body assures me that I’m
still in a safe zone, but that doesn’t mean I can wait much longer. If we can’t figure
out a way out of this mess, it’s entirely possible I’ll end up having to take my shirt
off to get to my insulin pump, and that’s definitely not on my to-do list for the
day. Or any day.

Zaina gets a “kinda hot” accent, and I get diabetes. In a movie, she’d be the hot
foreign-exchange student and I’d be, like, the friend of the geek the popular guys
make a bet over.

Chapter 14

TEN MOVIES THAT MAKE ME WISH MY LIFE WAS MORE LIKE A MOVIE

1.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

2.
10 Things I Hate About You

3.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

4.
Pitch Perfect

5.
The Princess Diaries

6.
The Breakfast Club

7.
Clueless

8.
Sixteen Candles

9.
Bring It On

10.
Easy A

The sound of someone keying the code into the main door makes everyone jump. I didn’t
think anyone was still in the store besides the six of us and Mr. Solomon, and he’s
been in the Manager’s Office since the store closed. Then it opens and Kris comes
in.

“Hey, guys,” he says. He’s got a small stack of papers in his hand, and it occurs
to me that he probably had manager-type stuff to do after close.

“You’re still here?” Gabe echoes my thoughts.

“Duty calls.” He flaps the papers at us as he crosses the Break Room to tap once on
the door to the Manager’s Office. He disappears into the office for a few minutes,
and when he comes back, he’s got a big grin on his face.

“Guess what, Younglings!” He claps his hands together once. “You are now my minions.”

“I thought we already were,” Tyson says.

“All right, you are now my . . . servants. Come on.” He sweeps his arm toward the
door, expecting us to get up and follow. Only Micah stands.

“What are we supposed to do?” Gabe asks.

“You’re going to help clean the store! Won’t that be fun?”

Everyone but Micah groans.

“Didn’t Agnes already disinfect the entire place before she left?” Sammi asks.

Gabe shakes his head. “She doesn’t leave, remember? She sleeps in a freezer case.”

Sammi snorts.

“Come on, my young ones.” Kris coaxes us from the door with wiggly fingers. “Would
you seriously rather sit in this room?”

“Than clean?” Gabe says. “Yes.”

“Well, too bad. On your feet. You’ve got work to do.”

Slowly, we follow Kris out the door. Though I’d never admit it to him, it does feel
good to stand up and move around a little bit. And I’d rather have something to do
to pass the time.

The late crew is still here, as it turns out, using the big motorized cleaners on
the floors.

“What do you want us to do?” Micah asks.

Kris points to a large gray janitor’s cart near the Self Checkouts. “There’s glass
cleaner and paper towels there. Find something glass and clean it.”

Sammi gives him a look of disbelief. “Do you want to be more specific?”

“There’s a lot of glass in here, Sammi. I don’t really care what you clean.” Beneath
the smile, he looks tired. Really tired.

Micah is the first to act, of course, taking the cart by the wide handle and angling
it toward the Bakery/Deli part of the store. I look at Tyson, and he shrugs once before
following Micah. I follow him, and the others fall in behind me.

The lighting in the store is weird after-hours. There are still some low-wattage bulbs
on, but not as many as there are during the day. And the back rooms behind Bakery
and Deli are dark. I didn’t realize how much light comes out of the circular windows
at the top of the swinging doors. Without it, the display cases have a distinctly
creepy look. Especially the wrapped lumps of unsliced meat in the Deli section. My
mind goes to horror-movie places.

I’m not the only one, either. “Shh,” Gabe says, and everyone stills. “If you listen
closely, you can hear the butchers grinding up human flesh for the sausages.” Then
he lets loose with an evil laugh.

“You have got to be the most immature idiot I’ve ever met,” Sammi says, giving him
a shove.

“Says the girl who just hit me.” He rubs his shoulder theatrically.

“Where should we start?” Micah asks. He’s holding a spray bottle and a handful of
paper towels, and looking back and forth between the Deli and Bakery.

“I call Bakery,” Sammi says, crossing over to the less horror-movie-set side of the
aisle. At night, the bakery cases are just plain empty. Only a few crumbs on the very
bottom shelves indicate that there used to be cakes, cookies, and rolls in there.

We split into small groups and work the area together. Now that the overhead Christmas
music is gone, I can hear the hum of the refrigeration units below as I polish the
glass in front of the empty platters where deli salads and prepared foods were during
the day. I can also hear the steady whir and whoosh of the floor polisher a few aisles
away. Somewhere, someone is listening to a portable radio, but it’s too far to make
out the song.

Zaina is scrubbing the case beside me. It’s funny how even though I’m being quiet,
too, I can’t stop fixating on how long it’s been since she spoke. She hasn’t said
a word since we started cleaning. The silence is starting to feel like a giant bubble
between us, pushing us apart and drowning out any noise either of us might make.

So, when she speaks, I nearly jump out of my skin, and she apologizes: “Sorry, I didn’t
mean to startle you.”

“No, it’s fine. I was lost in thought, I guess. What did you say?”

“I said I hate cleaning windows.” She makes a face.

I can’t help smiling. “I’d rather do windows than floors.”

“I wouldn’t mind the floors if I could ride on that machine.” Her hazel eyes light
up.

Laughter bursts out of me at the image of Zaina riding the big industrial floor cleaner.
It’s like a miniature Zamboni. She would look ridiculous up there, but I love the
idea. “I’ve always wanted to ride one of those scooter carts we have up front,” I
confess.

Gabe overhears us. “Which one do you think would win in a race?”

“Forget that, I just want to bring my board in here.” Sammi rocks back into a skateboarding
stance. “I could totally grind the cases over in meats.”

“That would be epic,” Gabe agrees.

“I’ve always wanted to ride my bike in the store,” Micah adds. “You know, when it’s
empty in the morning? Did you ever want to do that as a kid? Like at Target or Walmart,
when they have the big bike section and you can try them out?”

“Totally,” Sammi says. “I used to do laps around the bike section, and my parents
would be all, ‘Samantha, stop that! You’re going to hurt someone!’” She scolds herself
in the strangled whisper of a parent trying not to draw attention to an out-of-control
kid.

“I was a runner,” Gabe says. “My parents used to keep me on one of those leashes.”

“What?” Zaina’s expression is priceless.

“It’s supposed to look like a fuzzy backpack, but it’s a leash.” Gabe mimes trying
to make a break for it and getting yanked back on the end of an invisible line.

Tyson laughs. “Somebody ought to leash you now.”

“I remember the first time I went to a hotel,” I say. “When the elevator doors opened,
and I saw that long hall”—I can still picture it in my mind and my pulse accelerates—“I
just took off.”

“There’s something about big empty spaces,” Gabe agrees, gesturing around us at the
wide aisles.

“Let’s have a race,” Sammi says, tossing her wad of paper towels to the ground.

I laugh, but then I see she’s serious. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not?” she asks.

“Because we’re already in trouble,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. “(A) Exactly my point. What else are they going to do to us? And
(B) We didn’t do anything wrong. Besides, who says a race is wrong? They probably
won’t even notice. We’ll be back before anyone figures it out.”

“I don’t want to lose my job,” Micah says.

“Me neither,” Tyson agrees.

“Fine.” Sammi hunkers down and tightens the laces on her Vans. “You don’t have to
race. Gabe, you in?”

He tosses his paper towels over his shoulder. “I’m so in.”

“Anyone else?” Sammi asks. “No?” She goes into a sprinter’s stance and Gabe lines
up beside her.

“Me!” Zaina blurts out, and Sammi almost falls out of her pose.

She recovers quickly, though, shooting a grin at Zaina. “Hell yeah! Let’s do this.”

“Me too,” I say. I set my spray bottle and towels on top of the Deli case, then I
line up with my toes against the edge of the same floor tile as the others.

“On your marks,” Sammi intones, “get set . . . GO!”

Gabe is off the line before anyone else, and I know in that instant that no one is
going to beat him. Still, I run as fast as I can. My Converse make slapping sounds
on the hard floor as I rush past the end of the Deli section and take a left through
Seafood.

Sammi passes me on my left, making up ground on Gabe, but not getting close enough
to overtake him. Zaina is keeping pace with me to my right. We separate as we enter
Meats, and the huge refrigerated bunkers block the center of the aisle. Down the wine
aisle, I get a glimpse of the big ride-on floor cleaner, but then it’s gone.

Behind me I hear the sound of pounding feet and I glance over my shoulder to see Tyson
and Micah bearing down on me with wicked speed. I veer right as the meat bunkers end,
and then Zaina and I are approaching the glass dairy cases together while both Micah
and Tyson whiz by us.

My lungs burn by the time we pass the yogurt, but I only slow my pace a little. It’s
not far until the left turn into Frozen Foods. The others are already out of sight.
I can’t remember the last time I ran this hard. I can barely remember the last time
I ran. My doctor got me excused from gym for the last three years because my blood
sugar would get too low during class. I may have exaggerated a bit to stay out this
year, so I haven’t been running in a long, long time.

Zaina passes me in the ice-cream section, but I don’t care. When I round the turn
to see all the quiet registers, the others are so far ahead that they’re almost to
Floral. From there, they only have to make it through Produce and they’ll be back
to the starting point.

Still I run. From up ahead I hear laughter, and then Gabe’s voice. “Bet those cigarettes
don’t sound like such a good idea now, huh, Samantha?”

“Fuck . . . you,” Sammi pants.

The others are slowing a bit through Produce. All the display cases are set at angles
here, making a straight line through the department impossible. I’ve managed to cut
some of their lead by the time I run past the empty case where they put out the fresh-cut
fruit every morning. But it’s no contest—I’m going to be dead last. A stitch in my
side takes the last of my speed, and I have to walk the final ten yards or so with
the heel of my hand bracing my ribs.

“Woo-hoo! She made it!” Gabe cheers when I cross the finish line.

I lean forward and gasp for breath. My heart is pounding. “Who . . . won?”

“Me!” Gabe crows. “Take that, suckers!”

“You had a head start and you barely beat me,” Tyson says.

“Your hesitation cost you, man,” Gabe says.

I try to straighten up, but the world goes gray when I do, so I slump back down to
hold myself up on my knees. I’m breathing embarrassingly hard. Without getting up
again, I look toward the Produce section. There’s no sign that anyone has followed
us. I can’t believe we got away with a race through the store. I laugh a wheezy, out-of-breath
laugh.

“Little out of shape there, hey, Red?” Sammi pants at me, whacking me on the back.

“You don’t sound so great yourself,” Tyson says.

“Still came in third,” she says.

On my second attempt to straighten up, I manage it. My chest is still heaving, but
at least I’m upright. I check out the others, but they don’t look nearly as bad as
me. Not even Zaina, who was almost as slow as I was. Her cheeks are pink, and she’s
breathing a little heavier than usual, but that’s it.

At least the boys have the grace to be sweaty. Gabe is hopping from foot to foot like
a cartoon rabbit. “That was fun. Let’s go again!” he says with a grin.

Sammi flaps a hand at him. “God, no. I need a cigarette.”

“I need . . . some water,” I gasp.

“Aisle three,” Sammi says.

“Ha-ha,” I pant.

“I’ve got a bottle back in the Break Room,” Micah volunteers. “Do you want me to go
get it?”

I nod and go back to hands-on-knees. “Yes . . . please.”

I’m going to need more than water soon; I know it. My fingers are still tingling,
even though I’ve caught my breath. For the first time all day, I pray for the police
to come quickly.