Trauma Queen (10 page)

“Yeah? Cool. Then let's hear a poem.”

“Brody,” Ethan says. “Shut up.”

“Why? I like poems.”

“No, you don't. And she's new here; give her a break.”

Right then is the first time I take a good look at Ethan. He's never sat semi across from me before, so I've never noticed his dark eyelashes, or the golden freckles on his cheeks. Dark eyelashes, dark eyes, and
golden freckles.
Whew, what a combination. Plus he's standing up to Brody, which means he's smart and not a follower and amazingly
on my side.

Okay, so now I
have
to talk to Emma.

“I don't mean sucky poems,” Brody is arguing. “I mean the good kind. You know.
There once was a monkey from Spain—”

“Much smarter than Brody's dumb brain,”
Layla finishes. She takes another ziti and wiggles it in front of Brody's nose. “And here it is,” she says, grinning. “Your brain.”

“Get that out of my face.”

“No.”

“Get it out, Layla.”

Wiggle, wiggle. “First apologize to Marigold.”

“Layla, it's fine,” I say.

“No, it isn't. He's been acting like such a pig to you.”

“Hey, I'm serious,” Brody says, trying to grab Layla's arm.

She stands, laughing, and switches hands, still dangling the ziti. “So am I, pig. Stop the monkey jokes—”

“Layla,” Quinn says.

“Or face me in a joust. I'm warning you, pig.”

I'm about to protest again when boom, it hits me:
Layla and Brody are actually enjoying this.
They're not fighting, they're flirting.

Oh.

All of a sudden, Brody reaches up and bats the ziti
out of his face. It goes flying across the lunchroom and lands smack on Jada's table.

“Great,” Brody mutters. He looks at Layla like,
Now are you happy?

She blinks at him, too surprised even to laugh.

Somebody yells, “Ewwwww.”

Somebody else yells, “What was THAT?”

Ashley and Megan whip their heads around. As soon as they notice Layla standing, they poke Jada and start whispering. Then Jada gets up, and with the whole seventh grade staring at her, she marches in our direction.

She's holding the ziti between her thumb and index finger, like it's a bloody severed pinky. “Did you throw this at me?” she asks Layla in a supersweet voice.

“No,” Layla answers, looking Jada right in the eye.

“Yes, you did. Of course it was you. Don't lie.”

Layla snorts. “You know what, Jada? If I threw it at you, I'd say so.”

“No, you wouldn't,” Jada says nicely, smiling through her no-braces teeth. “Because that would be admitting you did something gross and immature and trashy, and we all know how you like to pretend you're sooo cool.”

Layla opens her mouth. You can hear everybody in
the whole grade suck in lunchroom air, and then let it out slowly like,
Ooooh, this is gonna be gooood.

But what's incredibly bizarre is that Layla doesn't make a sound. I mean, literally nothing comes out of her mouth
,
not a single word, not even one of her snorts. She just stands there, her cheeks getting redder and redder, clashing weirdly with the bright orange streak in her hair. Finally she plonks down on the bench, scowling at Brody, who refuses to make eye contact.

Jada flips her perfect no-split-ends hair over one shoulder and glances at Ethan, who's concentrating hard on his bowl of chili. Then she leans over the table and drops the ziti into Quinn's Tupperware. “I think this is yours,” she says.

“Sorry,” Quinn murmurs. “It was an accident.”

“Did you say something? I can't hear you.”

“I said it was an accident.”

“What?” Jada says distractedly, like Quinn is whispering from a distant galaxy.

Ethan puts down his spoon. “You heard her fine, Jada. She said it was an ac—”

“Oh, right, I'm
sure
.” Jada rolls her eyes. Then all of a sudden she notices I'm there. “Marigold,” she exclaims.
“I told you I'd save a seat at my table. What are you doing with these total zeroes?”

“Eating a sandwich,” I answer. “It's not bad, actually.”

She stares at me.

“Turkey,” I explain, and take a big bite.

The second Jada starts walking away, Layla glares at Brody. “I hate you,” she hisses.

“Why?” he says, like he's shocked. “What did
I
do?”

“Totally nothing. You just sat there.
Quinn
said something. Even
Marigold
got in her face.”

“No, I didn't,” I say quickly.

Layla ignores me. “You know what, Brody? Don't talk to me anymore.”

Then she gets up and bangs out of the lunchroom.

After lunch she cuts science, which is a stupid thing to do, because, of course, Mr. Hubley is the homeroom teacher, so he knows she isn't absent. She shows up
sixth period for math, but she spends the whole class with her head on her desk, not looking at Brody, who keeps trying to tell her obnoxious jokes, not talking to anybody, not even Quinn. All afternoon long, I can tell Ashley and Megan are buzzing around repeating everything that happened at lunch, as if the whole grade wasn't there and anybody needed an instant replay. But at least the day passes without any more drama. And as soon as the bell rings for dismissal, I grab my jacket and race out of the building.

But I don't get very far. Because the first thing I see when I step out the door is Beezer, whose leash is tied to the flagpole.

Immediately he starts barking at me like his tail is on fire. I run over, stroke his bristly fur, repeat his name a million times, but nothing works. He's barking louder now, and I'm starting to panic. How long has he been here?
Why
is he here? And where exactly is Mom?

Then I notice a yellow index card duct-taped to the flagpole:

Hi, my name is Beezer. I'm a
friendly beagle, with a fascinating
story about how I lost my ear.
I'll tell it to you sometime,
if you ask politely.

I'm here with Becca Bailey, mom
of Marigold (7th grade). Becca's
inside, chatting with Mr. Shamsky.
She'll be out in a few minutes,
but if I seem unhappy, please
bring me into his office.

Thanks. You're a pal.
Wags.

Okay, I decide. Mom is certifiable. This clinches it.

So of course I untie him. He gives me a dopey
I love you
look and starts slobbering all over my knee. A bus pulls up to the front of the school and kids are starting to trickle out of the building now, so I rip the index card off the flagpole, flip it over, and write,
HI MOM, TOOK BEEZER, M.
I duct-tape it back to the pole, yank Beezer's leash, and we're off.

I'm about a block from school when I hear someone yelling, “Marigold! Hey, wait up.”

I turn around: It's Ethan. He isn't with Brody and
he's actually running toward me
.

I sneak a pat-down of my hair, just to make sure I don't have zombie-static again, and do a casual smile, like,
Fancy meeting you here.
Then I realize the word “fancy”
sounds too much like Kennedy's prairie-talk, so I stop smiling and put on an
Oh hi, it's you
sort of expression.

As soon as he catches up to me, he says, “Nice dog,” and pets Beezer's head with a snowy glove.

“He isn't mine,” I blurt out.

“Oh, yeah?”

“We're just . . . friends.” But of course that sounds idiotic, and it doesn't explain where Beezer was all day, or how he showed up at dismissal with his leash. So I confess about Mom's note, how I have no idea what's going on. Ethan listens and nods like,
Yeah, people's moms tie one-eared dogs they don't own to school flagpoles all the time around here.
Then we watch Beezer pee on a tree trunk.

“So,” he says, once we start walking again. “What do you think about Crampton?”

“It's . . . interesting,” I say carefully.

“It's weird. It wasn't always weird. Just this year.”

I yank on Beezer, who's sniffing someone's mailbox. “What's so special about seventh grade?”

“I don't know. Everyone's crazy all the time. Fighting over the stupidest things.” I watch him pack a perfect snowball. “Like at lunch today.”

He tosses the snowball into the street, a far throw that just misses a dented-up minivan.

“Um,” I say. “Speaking of lunch. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why was Jada so mad? I mean, it wasn't even a food fight. It was just one piece of ziti. And it didn't even hit her.”

“Yeah, well.” He packs another snowball, which he lobs in front of Beezer. “Jada's kind of paranoid lately. She's always been, like, Boss Girl around here, and she thinks somebody turned on her.”

“You mean Quinn?”

He looks at me. “Who told you that?”

“Jada, actually. Before morning homeroom.” Ethan raises his eyebrows, and for some strange reason, even though I've been avoiding information all day, I decide to keep going. “So what happened?”

“Hey, this is girl stuff. I don't know all the details.”

We're at a crosswalk and cars are coming, so he stops to scratch Beezer's one ear. Then suddenly he says, “All
I heard was that Jada's parents were fighting really bad. Not like, call-the-police bad, but totally screaming at each other. And Jada freaked out, so she called Quinn—”

“Why would she?”

“Why
wouldn't
she? They've known each other since preschool. We all do, basically. You know, small town.”

I nod. Because I know all about small towns.

“And she made Quinn swear not to tell anyone. Jada's mom is PTA head, and Jada didn't want any gossip. But Quinn was upset, I guess, and her mom forced it out of her.”

I keep nodding.

“Yeah,” Ethan says. “And then Quinn's mom told Brody's mom, who, you know.” He kicks some ice. “I mean, she's a nice lady and everything, but she
talks
a lot. So pretty soon . . . well, you get the picture, right?”

“Right,” I say. I stop nodding, though, because I'm afraid my head will fall off.

“Anyway, Jada's furious. She feels like her whole family's been outed, and it's all Quinn's fault.”

I process this. It's funny to think I kind of understand Jada, but with everything I've been through lately, I have to admit I do.

I also process the fact that it's starting to snow
again, big wet lazy flakes that are probably sticking to my head. I swipe them away, hoping my hair doesn't go all zombified. “But why is she mad at Layla?”

“Who knows. Layla's really warped this year. Nobody likes her except Quinn, anyway.”

“And Brody.”

“Hey, don't ask me to explain that.”

“I'm not.”

Ethan shrugs. “Anyway. That was pretty cool how you stood up to Jada at lunch.”

“What? No, I didn't.”

“She thinks you did.”

“But all I said was—”

“You didn't follow her back to her table. She
expects
that.” He's looking at me with warm brown eyes. Cocoa-warm. And he has snowflakes on his lashes, which look like teeny-tiny marshmallows. And maybe his golden freckles are like dots of cinnamon—