Things Are Gonna Get Ugly Read online

  Twenty-nine eighth graders sit at their desks with government books open to men in white powdered wigs. Caylin giggles, Petra makes the hand sign for “wacko,” and Olivia Marquez frantically motions for me to sit down. She’s wearing a red babushka scarf over her hair, and a white peasant blouse with a black smocklike apron decorated with pink rosebuds. She looks like a Russian nesting doll.

  “I understand everything. About the CYT file,” I state, pulling my hood farther around my face.

  “CYT?” asks Dribble. “Is that like the CIA?”

  The class laughs. Not that I blame them.

  “You told me the day before. It means cover your—”

  Olivia jumps out her seat and clamps her long, pale fingers over my mouth. “Too much cold medication,” she says, apologetically. Did I hear the hint of a Russian accent? “Ernestine’s not herself,” she says.

  That’s true. Olivia’s hand feels cool and smells like lanolin. I try to push it away but she’s stuck to me like an octopus.

  Mr. Dribble hobbles back to the board, holding his precious dry eraser. He’s actually whistling “Yesterday,” an old Beatles tune, as he erases an old homework assignment in one wide, sweeping flourish. How can he be so happy? I’m completely altered, Mr. Dribble! What about you? You appear to be the same strange teacher as always, in what you call “your Donny Osmond purple socks.” Why are you playing dumb???

  Finally, I pull Olivia’s hand off my mouth, and before she sits down, I hear her mutter, “Nyet.”

  “I’m not going to just take this,” I say, still standing up. Then it hits me. Olivia’s incantations in gym, and now muttering things in phony Russian. Her obvious hatred of me. I wheel around and glare at her babushka-covered head. “Was it you? You! Those magic spells. I know it was!”

  Everyone in the class goes silent. I can hear the crackle of the loud speaker. Sneed nudges Winslow, who’s reading whatever is inside his notebook, while Caylin and Petra roll their eyes.

  Olivia steps backward, her eyes narrow. “Me? What are you talking about? Me what?”

  I leap forward, my arm swinging near her face. “You’re the one! Change me back! NOW! You used your magic on me! Help me! Please! You’ve got to use your woo-woo powers!!”

  “Woo-woo?” asks Olivia, looking around the room as if woo-woo might be a new classmate.

  The class is rolling in the aisles. Everyone is just completely cracking up. Even Winslow pops his head out from his notebook and gazes at me like I’ve got antennae sticking out of my head.

  Mr. Dribble bounds toward me, his face stop-sign red, his bushy mustache twitching like a squirrel’s tail. “Ernestine, we’re going to have a little talk. NOW. In the hallway.” As he ushers me down the aisle and out the door, in his hands, I see he has his pink-slip pad, the one he keeps on the right corner of his desk like he’s a doctor of detentions, and practically everyone goes, “Oooh,” at the same time. I can hear murmurs of “She’s going crazy” and “She’s going to get a detention.” And I can hear Caylin saying “Now, that was REAL random. What’s up with that?”

  “This is not free time, folks,” says Mr. Dribble, through clenched teeth. “While I chat with Ms. Smith, you guys are going to be reading about Thomas Jefferson. Heard of him? The dude on the front of a nickel, third president, ringing a bell? Read pages 105 to 114. And answer the questions at the end of the chapter.”

  The class groans and I hear a few sarcastic, “Thanks, Ernestines.” Dribble shakes his head. “Remember, you kiddos live in high-tech heaven, you got nothing to complain about. When I was kid, the number-one spot the Soviets wanted to nuke was here, the Silicon Valley. Not Washington, D.C. or New York or even Mount Rushmore, the place with the four presidents’ heads. You kids now have it easy-peasy pie.”

  The man makes absolutely NO sense.

  As we walk into the hallway, Mr. Dribble clutches his pickle jar in one hand and his pink detention-slip pad in the other. I squeeze my knuckles, trying not to let out a stress-busting primal wail.

  Dribble Speaks

  Mr. Dribble leans against the wall in the hallway and fishes a pickle out of his jar. “You’re right as rain, Taffeta Smith.”

  “Right about what?”

  He crunches into the pickle and juice drips down his chin. “I did it. Not Olivia. I hated hearing you give credit to the wrong person.”

  For a moment, I feel like I’m in freeze-frame mode but then I feel the whoosh of air flooding back into my lungs, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the chatter in the classroom. He did this? Mr. Dribble, who talks like a game show host, who enjoys the color purple, who loves his mustache just a little bit too much?

  My original hunch was right. I’m a quasi genius.

  No, this is crazy. I have become crazy. Yet, deep down I know all of this is somehow REAL.

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask, hoping that he will say yes. That it’s all an elaborate hoax. That I’ve been punked.

  “I’m an educator, Miss Smith. And right now I’m trying to educate you about the truth. I did it.”

  Can I really be having this conversation? Yes, apparently, I can. Mr. Dribble is smiling at me and pulling on the ends of his mustache.

  Right now I want to pull the mustache off his face. “Change me back. Make me into me.”

  He winces like he’s got food stuck in a molar. “Sure wish I could. Boy, do I.”

  “What do you mean you wish you could? Do your thing!”

  “It’s not in my control, Miss Taffeta. After all, you’re the one who said you wanted a fresh start.”

  “I didn’t mean change me into Freakzilla. I meant change what I did.”

  “Did?” Mr. Dribble asks.

  “You know,” I say under my breath. “My cheating. Not as me. As someone else. Oh, you know what I mean.”

  Mr. Dribble licks his yellow teeth and his orange mustache woobles. “Like I said, it’s all up to you.”

  “Me? Something I need to do?” He’s crunching on the pickle extra loudly and I want to tell him to close his mouth but I’m afraid he’ll turn me into a rodent or something.

  “Have you mistreated anybody lately?” he asks, screwing the lid on to the pickle jar extra tightly.

  I think for a second. What’s he talking about? He is giving me a clue. Lucky me.

  And I think some more. Me, mistreat someone?

  Slowly, though, a thought rolls in. “Winslow, I guess, but—”

  “But nothing.” He sets the pickle jar down on the floor. “I just asked you a simple question.”

  Did he mean did I do something bad and now I need to do something nice to make it up? Was that it? “So I need to do something about it?” As I shake my head, frizzy strands of hair fly into my eyes. That’s when it hits me—I’m really trapped in something. That my hair, as much as I brush it, isn’t going to smooth down into controllable waves. It springs, it frizzes, it geeks hard. I can’t do a makeover on myself to recreate Taffeta. I’m not going to be able to simply plunk contacts into my eyes and buy a whole new wardrobe. Somehow, I got into this mess magically and I’ve got to get out of this mess magically.

  “You need to rectify,” says Dribble.

  “Rectify?”

  “Mmm. Dancing with Winslow at Winterfest would be sweet, don’t ya think?” He grins at me, and I see this huge gap in the middle of his front teeth.

  “That’s it? We don’t have to officially go there together? Just show up independently and then I ask him to dance. He says yes, we dance, and then I’m me again?”

  He scratches his chin. “Sounds reasonable.”

  “I thought you were going to say I had to learn something or do something important. This is going to be SO easy.” I don’t even have to go with him to the dance, I think. Just one dance. How hard is that?

  Dribble fans his pink detention-slip pad. “Easy-peasy pie. Yay, team.”

  “And how did you do this?” I blurt. “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?” he asks.

/>   I stare at him. Infuriated comes to mind.

  Lunch

  After stressing through math and English, I get in line, tray up my veggie surprise, and trudge out into the middle of the cafeteria. Kids crowd into long tables strewn with sporks, backpacks, and lunch bags. The constant chatter sounds like a dull roar. I’m not picking up a word anyone is saying. My eyes check out the lunch tables. I think of the time that Maggie the Mushroom showed me her color-coded map of the cafeteria.

  Suddenly, the lunchroom becomes a rainbow of color.

  Without thinking, I head to The Girls’ table by the food cart. The Purples with their laughing, long hair, baby tees, whatever’s cool. But then I remember.

  I am still Ernestine.

  My legs press against the back of Caylin’s chair, and I know I must get away from here.

  “Looking for your friends?” asks Petra. She points to a table near the bathroom. “Over there, Ernie.”

  The red wonks: poet wench Olivia and Girl Scout activist Ninai. They see me and wave me toward them.

  I start to head over to Girl Geek Central, but a part of my brain screams, Run! Get away. Once you’ve attached yourself to them in any way, you’ll be associated forever.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Olivia, with a dramatic intake of breath, uncap her calligraphy pen.

  Instead, I head over to an empty table and sit down. I can see Ninai give Olivia a quizzical look. Sorry, but I don’t have time for this, for them. There is nothing that can get me to sit with those losers.

  A Sour Note

  Apparently, during fifth-period elective, I’m in orchestra.

  Ninai’s now opening the double doors and, before I know it, I am swept into the music room along with all of the other orchestra dorks.

  “You don’t need to be nervous about your solo coming up,” Ninai babbles. “You’ll do fine in the concert.” Students pluck violins, violas, and cellos as they tune their instruments.

  Concert? What concert? That means I have to play an instrument I know nothing about in front of actual, live human beings. A couple of violinists play something very complicated as their fingers dance up and down the strings. I have to do that? I don’t know the difference between Mozart and Beethoven. It all sounds the same to me, like the soundtrack of a movie about someone dying or a National Geographic special about penguins. There’s just no way!

  “Ernestine, are you okay?” asks Ninai.

  “Um, not great. Feeling sort of sick, actually. Tell Mr.—” I point to a dude in a Beatles-like haircut.

  “Mr. Takashama,” finishes Ninai.

  “Yeah, that guy. Tell him I’m at the nurse’s office.”

  With that I hold my stomach and bolt out of the double doors and into the hallway, where the only sounds are the fluorescent lights buzzing.

  I spend fifth period in the girls’ bathroom.

  Look at Me!

  At the beginning of the fifteen-minute break before sixth period, I sprint to the library, figuring that’s where a geek of Winslow’s magnitude would be hanging out. Olivia sits at the front desk, stamping magazines that look very important and celebrity-free. I can’t believe she actually takes library skills for her elective AND does that Book Worm club after school. I edge away from her and duck by a rack of paperbacks, but she’s spotted me anyway.

  “Ernestine, is that you?” I’m crouching and somehow my head hits the books, knocking down a copy of Holes.

  Olivia leans over the counter. “We missed you at lunch. Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” I say, standing up and sliding the book back onto the rack.

  “What were you talking about in Mr. Drabner’s class? What’s going on? Did he write you up?”

  Mr. Drabner? Oh, right. Dribble’s real name. I always forget. I shrug. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking or saying. I haven’t been feeling too hot. But Dribble was kind of cool about the whole deal. I mean, he didn’t even give me detention or anything.”

  For some reason, Olivia gives me her small, crooked-teeth smile. “What did I do? Tell me what I said. I knew I was magic. Last night, I had a dream I was soaring, Erneski, on an orange moonpie rocket through firefly winks to you.” She whirls around and smiles blissfully. Suddenly, I want to make like a spaceship and take off, but I keep myself grounded.

  “Um, yeah, that’s it. Olivia. You’re so very powerful. Now, use your powers and tell me where Winslow might be.”

  She bites her lip and her eyes grow big and suddenly a little bit mean. “Winslow who?”

  “Fromes. Is there any other Winslow in this school?”

  She stamps a National Geographic about pregnant pygmies. The date thingie pounds right on the little woman’s tummy.

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Nyet.” Olivia keeps stamping, even though there’s no more magazines. There’s a reason, I think, that a female geek like Olivia, who happens to have very good bone structure, is a geek and not a diva. She has zero social skills. Can you imagine if teachers gave out grades for social skills? Then all of the geeks would fall to the bottom of the class.

  “Do you know where Winslow would be?” I ask in a louder voice.

  “Do I look like his mother? Dial 411 if you’re so curious.” Wow, Olivia has more attitude than me. She’s done a complete one-eighty.

  “I just thought that—”

  “I’d be keeping track of him every sec because that’s what I do with my time?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “It’s a homework question.”

  She pauses, knotting her babushka scarf around her neck. “He’s in the computer lab.” I can’t quite figure Olivia out. She’s was just so nice to me, and then, with one mention of Winslow, she goes PMS.

  As another student library aide rattles her book cart past me, I make a beeline for the computer lab. This is going to be easy-peasy pie.

  Target Found

  In the front of the room, I spot Winslow’s big blond ponytailed head, which is sort of distinctly flat, like his mother put him down on his back too much when he was a baby. He’s typing so fast the chain looped onto his pants clang against the chair. Today, Winslow sports a white T-shirt with black spots that says Deja Moo.

  I stand behind him and go, “Hey, Wins,” in my best reel-in-a-boy voice, but he keeps on typing. Listening to their iPods, two girls next to him chat online with their friends.

  “Heh-lo,” I say again, stomping my foot. The girls turn around and stare. Winslow still doesn’t budge. His thick fingers hip hop on the keyboard and his eyes laser into the screen, where a dragon shoots a ball of fire at a princess in a plunging-neckline–type dress.

  As the princess sprinkles some dust, shrinking the dragon, Winslow mumbles, “Hey,” to me, and then goes right back to staring at his screen filled with those flying dragons, centaurs, and scantily clad Xena types.

  Is a computer screen so much more interesting than my face?

  Yup. I, unfortunately, glimpse my reflection in the glass office next to the lab. My glasses don’t fit—they are halfway down my nose. My hair makes a golden frizz halo around my shoulders. That’s right—at the moment, I am Ernestine. This is so pathetic.

  I tap Winslow on the shoulder. “I need to talk to you right away,” I say urgently, and this time he turns around, blinking, as if the lights were just switched on after hours of darkness.

  “Okaaaay,” he says, obviously irritated at being interrupted. “What?”

  The bell rings, blaring in my brain, and I realize a quiet moment alone in middle school is an oxymoron. Where am I getting these vocab words from?

  “We’ll walk and talk,” I say. As the two iPod girls exit the computer lab, Winslow gathers up his messy binder, jams it into his canvas backpack, and I follow him out the door. As he weaves through the hallway, jocks bang into him, and he crashes into a kid in a wheelchair. His duct-taped shoes make a crinkly sound as he walks. Winslow is so oblivious. Can’t he see everyone watching, disapproving? I can.
They are also looking at me. Just being near him incriminates me further as a loser. As we stroll past rows of blue lockers, I can feel the stares. It’s as if we’re walking in a giant bubble together and every kid in the school wants to stick in a finger, see it pop, and watch the two of us disintegrate.

  An Indecent Proposal

  He’s standing there with his ponytail, biting the ends of it. There’s hair in his eyes, and a monster thrashing on his PDA. Warts dot the creature’s face, and it blows smoke in my direction. Now the ponytail is out of his mouth and he’s munching on some Cool Ranch tortilla chips.

  “So, are you going?” I blurt out and nod over at a poster for the dance taped up on the cinder blocks above the water fountain.

  “Where?”

  “Winterfest. The dance.”

  Winslow shrugs. “What do you think?”

  I don’t. “Are you?”

  He shifts his feet and cups his chin so that his neck cracks. He shrugs again.

  “So are you?” I repeat, feeling all interrogator-like.

  “Look at me,” he says, patting his chest.

  I take in his T-shirt, his ponytail, his duct-taped sneakers, and the smell of Cool Ranch tortilla chips.

  “Do I look like the type of guy who’s all, you know, psyched about going to the next middle school dance? Like, eeny meeny miny mo, which girl is it going to be this time because I’m such a hottie? Tell me. The truth, now. Do I look like that type of guy?”

  “No,” I say. “You don’t.” Why does the truth spurt out of my mouth at exactly the wrong time? I’m much more comfortable repressing, exaggerating, and telling lies.

  He flips the back of his ponytail like it’s his finger. “Thought so.” He plows past me and turns to go down the steps.

  “You’ve got to go.”

  “Why?”

  “Becaaaaaaaause”—for a moment I think about telling him the truth but this time, thankfully, I think better of it—“if you’ll go, I’ll dance with you!” I throw out my hands. “That’s why.”

  “Oh, wow, that’s so big of you.”

  “Winslow, it’s not like that. Okay? Just show up. I’m telling you, I’m going. It’s not a maybe. We—me and you—are going to dance at Winterfest. End of discussion.”