“Purple?”
That took me completely off guard. I pulled my head out of my locker and saw Leah standing next to me expectantly.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” she said triumphantly. “You were thinking of purple, weren’t you?”
I was sick of her bugging me, so I just said, “Yeah, that’s it. Purple. Wow.” And then finally she went home for the afternoon and shut up about it.
Meanwhile, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. I figured just jumping on the bus wouldn’t be a good idea since I was supposed to go to that initiation thing. And besides that, I don’t ride the bus. But I’ve always wondered what would happen if I just did one day. I know they say that you can’t ride unless you start at the beginning of the year, but if I showed up at the bus door screaming and crying and whining, would they really turn me away?
I was thinking about that when I happened to run right into Jamey Fitzhughston, who was really not the person I wanted to see.
“Oh, Jendra, good,” she said, sounding like she wanted to puke all over me.
“Hi,” I said shakily. “Is it time for the initiation?” I was a little nervous about that. I could still remember my sixth-grade volleyball initiation, which involved stuffing lime Jell-O in my bra, and taping ostrich feathers to my face and Coke cans to my butt. And the people in charge of that little romp had actually liked me. I shuddered to think what someone who hated me as much as Jamey Fitzhughston did would make me do.
Actually, though, she didn’t seem to want to make me do anything. In fact, she didn’t want to have anything to do with me. In fact, even though she said my name, I’m not even sure she recognized me right away. As soon as she did, she got this disgusted look all over her face and left, so I was just standing there all by myself in the hall.
Until Tina showed up with a ready stick of gum. “Just ignore Jamey,” she said, popping the gum into my mouth. It was spearmint this time.
“I think she hates me,” I said.
“She does,” Tina assured me.
“Well, that’s comforting!” I exclaimed with a snort.
“Jendra,” said Tina, rolling her eyes, “don’t snort, for heaven’s sake. It’s so porcine.”
“It’s what?” I croaked.
She didn’t answer me. “And don’t worry about Jamey, either. She may look fierce, but her powers are relatively weak.”
“What?” I thought that was kind of an odd thing to say, but Tina stopped talking then and led me off down the hall.
“Where are we going?” I asked her after a few minutes of walking.
“Back to the bike rack,” she said with a smile. “But first we’ll stop by the vending machines to pick up some diet sodas.”
“And some chocolate from the snack machines?” I hoped.
“Jendra,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Fattening?”
“Okay,” I said glumly.
Before long we were at the bike rack in back of the school. I felt a little bit out of place because everybody had a bike but me. Since we lived so close, I usually walked to school. Or sometimes Leah’s mom gave me a ride, when it rained and stuff.
“You can ride with me,” Lien Hua volunteered. “Unless you’d rather run along beside us.”
Call me crazy, but that suggestion didn’t sound too fun.
“My dog likes to do it,” Lien Hua reasoned as she continued to smile. “But it’s probably better if you get on the bike. You can sit on my handlebars.”
“Are you sure?” I squeaked. That didn’t seem like such a great idea to me. I mean, Lien Hua is pretty short, and my butt is pretty big, and frankly, I thought that if I sat on her handlebars, she wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. But we didn’t exactly have time to think of a better plan because the next time I looked up, I saw that the other girls were all pedaling away.
“Come on,” Lien Hua urged with that smile of hers. “Hop on.”
I hopped on, and the bike fell over.
“Okay,” said Lien Hua with a giggle, “we can try again.”
By the time we actually got to the wall around Jamey Fitzhughston’s house, we’d been on Lien Hua’s bike for about an hour, and we’d fallen over twice and run over a discarded pizza box, after narrowly missing a low-flying pigeon.
“Well, here you two finally are,” said Tina, sounding exasperated. “Hurry up, Lien Hua. Everybody else is already inside.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Jendra,” she said. “We are going to have to get you a bike.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to walk straight. My butt was really sore from the handlebars. “That sounds like a good idea to me. So, when does my initiation start?”
“As soon as we get inside,” she said. I expected her to stroll up the front walk, but instead, she jumped over the wall. I suddenly glanced up at the house and noticed that something about it was strange. It didn’t look lived in. The grass in the front yard was really overgrown, and vines covered the house and the wall.
“I thought you said this was Jamey Fitzhughston’s house,” I said, scrambling over the wall after Tina. I’m not much of a scrambler, and by the time I got to the other side, I felt a lot like scrambled eggs. Between riding the bike and scaling the wall, I was feeling pretty worn out. But, unfortunately, I still had a full afternoon ahead of me.
“Technically, it’s an abandoned house,” Tina explained. “But Jamey’s the one who found it, so we say it’s hers. We use it as our official off-campus headquarters. Once we get enough money, we’re going to buy the place.”
“Where are you going to get enough money to buy a house?” I asked.
Tina shrugged. “Why do you think we do all of those bake sales?” she asked.
That shut me up for a while. Tina led me around to the back of the house, to an old wooden door painted black. She stuck a diet soda tab in the lock and fiddled around with it until the door opened.
Inside, I expected to find an abandoned, messy old dump, but to my surprise the place was completely furnished—and furnished really well, I might add. Beautiful, intricately woven oriental carpets covered the polished hardwood floors, and the walls were painted metallic gold. From the shine you would have thought it was real gold. There were crystal chandeliers and a bunch of busts and statues and sculptures all over the place.
“Wow!” I said. “This is really beautiful. Where did you get all the money to decorate this? More bake sales?”
Tina only laughed. “Follow me,” she said. “Oh, and, by the way, Jendra, take off your shoes.”
I slipped off my black sneakers and stepped lightly across the elaborate rugs, following Tina into the kitchen. She suddenly stopped at the oven.
“Well?” I prompted. “Where to now?”
To my surprise, Tina opened the oven door and ordered, “Get in!”
“What!” I shrieked, jumping back a few feet. I mean, literally, a few feet. I sort of crashed into the sink, which hurt my butt even more, I might add. What was this? The old Hansel and Gretel treatment? “Okay,” I said, “I’ve heard of weird initiation rites before, but do you really—”
“Jendra,” Tina said shortly. “It’s not what you think. Just get in.”
I still felt shaky about the whole thing, but Tina slid in first, so I sort of had to follow her. To my surprise, the oven didn’t have a back. Instead, it had a huge opening, that led to a spiral staircase.
“Whoa!” I said, carefully following her down the stairs. “This is really weird.”
“Just wait,” Tina said with a grin. “You’re not going to believe your eyes once we get to the bottom.”