Chapter 17

By wearing black fur with bright-white stripes, skunks warn other animals about their stinky spray. This is called aposematic coloring.

—Animal Wisdom

I wish that humans were able to show how dangerous they were by what they wore. Then we would know who to avoid, and we could also warn everyone else when we were in a bad mood!

Gossip is a lot like skunk spray. One minute it hasn’t hit anyone yet, but the next, it’s everywhere. I don’t know how it happens. How one little incident can turn into something that’s practically being read by the serious-sounding guy with the mustache on the nightly news.

The fact that I broke my wrist was all over school on Monday, and despite a bucketload of rumors, nobody seemed to know the truth. Even though a lot of people had been at my party, I guess Ashley hadn’t told anyone exactly what had happened, but everyone seemed to think they knew.

Three Theories Why, I, Ana Wright, Have a Cast (In Order of Me Hearing Them on the Way from the Front Lawn of the School to Homeroom):

1. Eric (otherwise still known as The Guy Who Wears Too Much Cologne) told people that I was fighting a gorilla for a banana that ended up breaking my wrist in a Planet of the Apes–style fight. Odds of this are apparently four-to-one, according to the bets I heard.

2. Rachel from homeroom said that she heard that I was playing hopscotch, and a rogue buffalo charged me, stepping on my hand.

3. The weirdest theory came from Daz, who has been telling people that a crocodile bit my arm off, and that my cast is really hiding a cyborg arm now. He’s even saying that I have a laser thing built in like Iron Man, which is probably the coolest part of his theory. The sad thing is, Daz was there and saw what actually happened, but he’s not giving up on his Iron Man theory for anything.

I’d only had a cast for one day, but I can tell you this already: casts definitely do not belong in junior high. So far, I’d already dropped my books twice, fumbled my lunch on to the floor (big sandwiches are hard to eat with only one hand), and accidentally closed my locker door on my thumb.

Now I have a weird bruise on my thumbnail that looks like a wombat.

The only bright side was now that people thought I was a gorilla-fighting-buffalo-outrunning-Iron Man-knockoff, they seemed a lot more scared of me, like I might suddenly whip out a cape and fly off out the window. That didn’t get me out of schoolwork though. When Mr. Nicholson gave us a free period to work on our media projects, I knew I had to use every minute I could. The rest of my life was a ridiculous pile of zebra dung, but I couldn’t botch this documentary too.

“Okay, guys.” I herded Bella and Ashley out into the quiet hall, where Mr. Nicholson had said I could do some filming. “I need a few minutes with each of you, so I can film your spots for my documentary. I need to do well on this,” I said, picturing that bright-red F on my quiz. With everything going wrong in my life, I deserved to win something, right?

“You’re lucky I did my hair this morning,” Ashley said, checking her reflection out with a pocket mirror. “Do we have to say anything special? Does the camera really add ten pounds?” She looked suspicious.

“You look beautiful!” Bella said, checking her own hair in Ashley’s mirror. “All we have to do is answer Ana’s prompts, like she said. Right?” She turned to me.

“That’s it,” I said, taking off the camera’s lens cap with my good hand and shuffling Ashley against the wall where the light was nice and bright. “I’ll ask you questions to prompt you about us, and then I’ll edit it all together, and when I’m done, I’ll have a wicked awesome documentary about everyone that influences me.”

A dark thought crept over me as I spoke. Should I still include Liv in my film? I’d tried calling her a bunch of times last night but kept getting no answer. If I couldn’t even reach her on the phone, how was I expected to film her? And was it right that I was the only one trying to fix us now? I mean, I knew I shouldn’t have lied, but there were still lots of things Liv has done that she could have apologized for too. What about saying sorry for making fun of me with Leilani?

I sucked in a breath, forcing myself to get back to work. When the camera and lights were perfect, I gave Bella and Ashley a nod.

“’Kay, let’s do this,” Ashley said, squaring her shoulders.

I counted down, then turned the camera on. “So, Ashley,” I started. “You and I never used to be friends, but I’m including you as one of my influences today because we hung out with sharks together in the summer and realized we don’t actually hate each other. Can you talk a little more about that, and maybe about how we influence each other?”

Ashley cleared her throat. “Yep!” Her voice was bubbly and assertive, like I remembered from our summer presentations at the shark tank. “I used to hate Ana. Like super-duper hate.”

I made a face behind the camera.

“But!” Ashley continued, fluffing her hair. “She dove in a shark tank to keep me from getting embarrassed. I mean, sure, it was after she pretty much tried to ruin my life, so it was all her own fault anyway. But, in the end, it all worked out, and I’ve actually learned a lot from her…”

I smiled, urging her to continue talking. She looked like she was on a real documentary!

“Like, I’ve learned that just because something is super geeky doesn’t mean you have to pretend you don’t like it. Ana likes a lot of crazy geeky things, but it’s cool that she doesn’t let other people make her feel dumb for it. And I think I’ve influenced her too. Before she met me, she used to be shy, and I’m pretty sure that it’s because of me that she found a backbone and stood up for herself.” She winked at me.

“I mean, yeah. It was technically me she was standing up against, but you know. We both influence each other to be better people. I think. Wait, is that totally sappy?”

I grinned, hitting the stop button. That last line was perfect for the end of Ashley’s segment. “That was awesome,” I said, thanking her.

With Bella taking her place, I turned the camera on again.

“I’m Bella.” She waved to me shyly. “And unlike Ashley, I’ve never really been afraid to be into geeky things.” A small smile crossed her face as she peeked beside her, where Ashley was watching. “I’ve always loved museums and books and ancient maps and stuff. So I don’t think that Ana influenced me in the same way that she did Ashley. But I do think that she helped me in another way.”

I kept the camera steady, but my heart was beating fast. It was cool to learn that Bella was great at speaking on camera.

“Ana helped me learn that I could speak up,” she said finally. She reached up to her hair, quickly tucking it behind her ear. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters, but with Ana, it feels like I have a sister. Same with Ashley. I feel like I have two sisters that taught me I can say what I’m feeling, and I don’t have to keep it all hidden inside.”

“Aw!” Ashley burst into the frame, wrapping her arms around her. “That’s the nicest thing ever, you weirdo!”

Bella laughed as I struggled to hit the stop button without dropping them out of frame.

“That was amazing, guys!” I said, joining their hug. And yes, I couldn’t speak for the two of them, but I definitely felt like a giant cheese ball for randomly hugging my friends in the hallway, but I couldn’t help it. They were awesome. And now I had the footage to make the best documentary Mr. Nicholson had ever seen.

“Thank you so much,” I said.

Ashley bit her lip. “Are you still planning on filming the sign at the zoo tonight?” she asked. Her eyes darted to Bella.

“Yeah,” I said. “Why? You guys want to come?”

“Umm…” Ashley trailed off. Instantly she looked guiltier than a fox in a henhouse. “Maybe?” She raised her eyebrows to Bella. “What do you think, Bella? We can do that, right? Let’s go hang out tonight at the zoo while Ana films…”

“Yes! Let’s do that!” Bella said. Now she was the one who looked guilty.

“All right,” I said, my shoulders slumping. “What is it? What are you two planning?”

“Nothing!” they both said in unison, with false-innocent smiles plastered onto their faces.

Say what you will about them, but they are not good liars.

When I showed up at the zoo after school to get a shot of the big sign out front for the opening sequence of my documentary, I couldn’t stop peering behind me, looking for trouble. What were Ashley and Bella planning? Did it involve scaring the pants off me live on video?

But by the time I’d finished filming, they still hadn’t shown up. It wasn’t until I was packing up my camera that Ashley rushed up behind me.

“You’re here!” She panted, bending over with her hands on her knees as she wheezed. “I thought we were going to miss you!”

Bella followed close behind her. Her short hair was whipped nearly straight up from the wind, giving her a girlie faux hawk.

I checked my watch. “Where have you guys been? I’m finishing up now.”

Ashley shook her head, puffs of air cloudin around her face in the cold. “Nuh-huh.” She gasped. “We were late—” She held up her shaking hand. Bella patted her on the back.

“We wanted to find you here,” she explained. Her eyes were wide. “We asked Liv to come here.”

I stepped back, feeling my heart flip-flop in my chest. “What?” I yelped. “Why? Why would you do that?! I haven’t even been able to get her to respond to my texts.” I gripped my camera bag right in my good hand, fumbling with my cast.

Ashley had regained her breath. “We went over to her hotel to talk to her and asked her to come here.” She fingered through her wavy hair under her woolly hat, straightening out the static-fizzy pieces by her face.

“But why?!” I squeaked.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “You guys need an intervention, pronto.”

I frowned. “An intervention? There’s no way she’s going to go for it! She hates me.” The truth felt bitter in my mouth.

Bella grinned. “But she did go for it! I mean, she acted a little miffed about it all, but she’s here! She’s waiting for you in the Crocodile Pavilion right now! We’ve been rushing around all afternoon to make sure it’s all lined up!”

My throat tightened. The fact that Ashley and Bella had tried to do all this for me made my heart feel five sizes bigger in my chest.

“You did all that so I could talk to her?” I asked.

“We wanted to do something about it,” Ashley said. “Obviously I don’t like her, but she’s your friend and all that. I know what it’s like to have someone turn on you, no matter how hard you try to fix things.”

My memory flickered to Rayna and how she had been giving Ashley the cold shoulder since she started hanging out more with me.

“I’m so sorry, guys,” I said, scratching my cast nervously. “I lied to both of you, and I didn’t mean to, and now you’re doing this nice thing for me…”

Ashley moaned. “Apology accepted already! Now get in there and make up so all this work we did to convince her to come won’t be for nothing! You’re really annoying when you’re all wigged out about her.” She crossed her arms as Bella smirked.

“Okay,” I said, gathering up as much courage as I could muster. I started to march toward the Crocodile Pavilion, a million thoughts buzzing through my head. “Wish me luck.”