I already know what you’re thinking. You probably figure that I went to lunch, and right away, somebody complained about being hungry, and I started busting a move all over the place. Well, sorry, but wrong.
Actually, I made it through lunch rather incident free, because I spent most of it eating pretzels with the cheerleaders. I did stop by Matt and Leah’s table for a minute, though, which turned out to be sort of a mistake.
Instead of saying “hi,” Matt greeted me with, “I wish I had some lunch money. Man, I’m hun—”
At that point I knew I had no choice. I had to cut him off. Clapping a hand over his mouth, I said in my gushiest voice, “I love you, too, honey.” Then I ran across the cafeteria as fast as possible. After that, all these rumors started circulating through the school that Matt and I were going out. Wonder why.
Anyway, the rest of lunch was a breeze because Tina and the cheerleaders sure didn’t want to blow my cover.
Unfortunately, Texas history was next, and I’ve never yet spent a period in that class that didn’t end up being unfortunate in some way.
At least Matt and I didn’t have any problems getting back into class. Tina had definitely worked her magic. Ms. Long acted like she didn’t even remember what had happened the day before. It was like she had never kicked us out of class.
Still, I was really worried that something would go wrong.
Sure enough, just as Ms. Long had dimmed the lights to show us her award-winning slides of the Alamo, some idiot blurted out, “Lunch was over too soon, man. I am so hungry!”
“Noooooooooooooooo!” I wailed in agony, but it was too late. A split second later I was up on top of my desk, strutting my stuff. Disco this time.
“Jendra?” Matt croaked in alarm. “What the heck are you doing?”
I tried to be cool. I thought maybe if I played it just right, I could turn my mad dancing fetish into a trend, so I threw my hands up in the air and started clapping and yelling, “YMCA. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. YMCA!” Okay, so I don’t exactly know the words, or the tune, and my voice is not exactly the greatest, so, come to think of it, this really wasn’t one of my better plans. Plus, right away some smart-alecky guys in the back of the room started to sing their own off-color version of the lyrics.
“Boys!” Ms. Long interrupted in horror. She immediately ran to the other side of the room and flipped on the light.
“Jendra MacKenzie!” my teacher raged at me. “Get down from there this instant! What are you thinking of!”
“I know this looks bad!” I exclaimed, doing some moves from that old seventies movie Saturday Night Fever. “But I can’t help it!”
“Go to the office at once!” she screamed.
“The office?” said Matt. “Are you sure you shouldn’t send her to a disco?”
“Perhaps you don’t like my slide shows,” Ms. Long said to me crisply.
I had to think about that one, “Well, yes,” I said, kicking up my legs can-can style as I jumped from desk to desk, “that’s true. But that’s not why I’m dancing. I promise, I can’t help it! I’d stop if somebody would say turkey.”
“Turkey?” Ms. Long repeated suspiciously. Instantly I stopped dancing and fell off the desk. The Star Trek lunch box, which I’d been holding in my hand, landed on the floor beside me with a clatter. I started to kneel to pick it up, but before I could, Ms. Long swept down from on high and seized it in her talons. Then she soared back up to her nest and started puking up earthworms to feed to her young. (Sorry, I was just trying to use an extended metaphor. I won’t do it again.)
“Ms. Long!” I said, grabbing for the lunch box. “I really need to hold on to that. Can I have it back, please?”
“No!” she yelled. “Are you insane? Go to the office!”
“But I need—” I started to protest.
Ms. Long interrupted me. “You need to learn some manners,” she said, ruffling her feathers and flapping around the room. Okay, sorry. I did say I’d drop the bird metaphor.
“Can I at least pick it up after school?” I begged.
“No,” she snapped instantly. “I’ll be holding on to it for the rest of the year.”
“For the rest of the year?” Oh, no! The cheerleaders were going to kill me!
“Please, Ms. Long,” I whined. “Please.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said coldly, fingering the latch.
“No!” I screamed, charging forward so that I crashed into her and we both fell backward against the window. Good thing it wasn’t open, or we would have been lawn decorations. I jumped back to my feet and said, “Ms. Long! Whatever you do! Please! You can’t open that lunch box.”
“Why?” she demanded. “What’s in it?” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously and guessed, “Drugs?”
“Drugs?” I exclaimed. “Do I seem like the kind of person who would have drugs?”
The whole class burst out laughing.
“Well, frankly,” Ms. Long replied, “yes.”
“You can’t open that lunch box,” I insisted. I tried to think of some reasonable excuse. “The hospital scheduled me to be an organ donor, and one of my kidneys is in there. Honest. Some guy needs it for an operation this afternoon.”
“Miss MacKenzie,” Ms. Long began cynically, but just at that moment thick coats of green slime started dripping down the seams on the sides of the lunch box. It landed in clots on the floor.
“Gross!” yelled Matt. “Jendra, what’s in there?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. Actually, I was beginning to feel a bit concerned. I decided to go get Tina. “Excuse me, I’ve got to go to the office now,” I said. Without waiting for a reply, I dashed out the door and took off down the hall.