I like most surprises, but there are some I could live without. For example, I don’t like finding Libby’s long hair in my cereal.
But I do enjoy good surprises, like when I get a check from my grandpa for being …
Or when my parents go shopping at one of those big warehouse grocery club stores and come home with boxes of food that we usually never buy.
But even the good surprises don’t compare to the great surprise I got after school when I was walking down the hall with Trevor. Maggie, Janae’s friend, stopped me and said,
Maggie walked off, and I looked at Trevor. He seemed even more surprised than me. In fact, he was so shocked that his glasses were straight for once.
I couldn’t believe the note I slipped into Janae’s locker had worked. In the history of notes, it was one of the dumbest.
I didn’t have time to think about how lucky I was. I needed to get home and get my homework done so I could slip out my window and get to the mall by four. Plus, I needed to spend at least fifteen minutes brushing my teeth to get my breath in good shape.
I was lucky. When I got home, my mom was taking a nap on the couch and Tuffin was at a neighbor’s house playing. I did my homework in record time and then brushed my teeth and combed my hair in a way that made it look like I wasn’t a baby. I also put on a little body spray. While slipping out my window, I was greeted by another surprise. This one seemed to shock me almost as much as Janae liking my note.
It was Jim. The preachy half-bat, half-cricket that had come out of the closet with Pinocula and never gone back in. Despite him being a little bossy, I was happy to see him.
I didn’t like the sound of that. I bet nobody has ever been happy to see trouble show up at their party.
Jim flew into my room and rested on my dresser, where Wonk’s cane used to be. He took off his tiny top hat and dusted the brim of it. He then put it back on and cleared his throat.
I explained to Jim that I was wearing body spray because I was going to meet someone at the mall, and that it was important that I smelled good because …
It was a lie, of course. I was wearing body spray because of Janae. But the mall still does smell like feet. Since Jim had come with Pinocula, he knew all about lying, so he didn’t buy the one I was telling. He told me that he had been hanging around and knew all about my plan to meet Janae.
Jim was interrupted by the sound of something hitting my window. I looked over and saw an egg running down the pane.
I looked out my window, and what did I see? Nothing. If one of my friends had thrown the egg, he would still have been there laughing and pointing at me. It wasn’t unusual for weird things to be thrown at my window. Aaron had thrown mud balls before, Teddy had thrown gummy worms, Rourk had thrown water balloons, and Jack had thrown some of the tomatoes his dad had grown on their roof. Now someone had thrown an egg, but someone wasn’t there. No one was around.
When I turned to ask Jim if he had seen who did it, he was no longer on top of my dresser.
I didn’t know what Jim was going to tell me, but I needed to get to the mall and couldn’t wait around for him to show up again. I climbed out my window, being careful not to get any egg on myself, and headed across the street to Trevor’s. He had told me that he wanted to go to the mall with me to film some of the shops to put into our movie. I was nervous about meeting Janae, so I was kind of happy he wanted to come along. I didn’t want to be by myself if she didn’t show up or if she brought a friend. It never hurt to have a wingman to help you out. And unlike my other friends, Trevor was a pretty good wingman.
The mall wasn’t too far away, but I didn’t want to walk. And since my bike was broken and my skateboard was in my locked closet, I needed to borrow Trevor’s. He never used his skateboard and had only tried it once. His mom had made him wear all kinds of crazy protective gear, and he still crashed on a small wall and biffed it bad.
He had fallen down so hard that he’d decided never to skate again. Now we just used the skateboard to roll each other sodas when we were sitting around his swimming pool.
Trevor lent me his skateboard, and he rode his bike. It took him around fifteen minutes to put all of his safety pads on.
By the time we got to the mall, it was almost four and the wind had given me weird hair.
Trevor also warned me about keeping track of his skateboard. Sure, he never used it, but he still didn’t want it to get lost or stolen. He was extra worried because in the last couple of weeks our town, Temon, had been having a lot of little things taken from people’s houses and yards. They weren’t expensive things. It was more like Kleenex boxes and sunglasses and lawn gnomes. The police were currently looking for what they were calling …
Trevor’s family was really concerned about their personal safety, so they had put new locks on their doors and gotten an alarm system. They even put up a sign on their lawn.
I promised Trevor I would keep a good hold on his skateboard and make sure that the Temon Taker didn’t get his hands on it.
Since my hair was a mess, we stopped at one of the mall’s bathrooms before going to Mustard Burger. I used the mirror in the bathroom and combed through my hair to fix it. Then I nervously made my way with Trevor to Mustard Burger.
When I got to Mustard Burger, Janae was standing out in front. Okay, so people already make fun of me for the way I described Katfish. And my friends still give me a hard time about once saying Janae was cute, but the thing is, I don’t know how to talk about girls. Now, as Janae was standing in front of Mustard Burger, she looked better than ever.
I told Trevor nicely to get lost, and he ran off to film some random stuff. I did my best to walk coolly up to Janae and say,
My mouth needed to be arrested and locked up.
I had said “howdy” as if it was the olden days and we were living in a western town. I quickly added some words after “howdy” in an attempt to make it sound a little less dorky.
Like a fool, I kept talking in an attempt to correct my mistake.
I was about as smooth as a rhino covered in shards of glass.
Janae looked a little concerned at first, but then she smiled and laughed. One of the best things about Janae is that sometimes she mistakes my dorkiness for my sense of humor. So if I say something stupid, she thinks it’s just me being clever. I hope she never finds out the truth. I sure as heck am not planning to tell her. I figure I’ll wait until I’m on my deathbed to admit things like that.
Janae reached out and took my hand. I think it was because she liked me, or maybe my mom had told her that my balance was poor and I needed people to help prop me up. It kind of seemed like the sort of thing my mom would do.
While holding hands, we bought mustard burgers and fries and sat over by the quarter rides. At first Janae did most of the talking, but every once in a while, I would try to say something that didn’t sound too dumb.
Janae and I talked about a lot of things. She was actually pretty easy to have a conversation with. She told me about her life, and I told her about mine. I also told her that my family was going on a trip next week to New Mexico. She was smart enough to know that New Mexico was a state. After I told her about the trip, she said,
I got a compliment from Janae! At least I’m pretty sure it was a compliment. Boring is bad, which means that things will be bad without me. I could feel my neck and face getting hot as I blushed. I must have looked as red as a cherry.
Time flew by, and before I knew it, it was five o’clock and Janae’s friend Maggie came looking for her to leave. I didn’t know what I should do. I think Janae and I were kind of turning into boyfriend-girlfriend, but nothing was official. Was I supposed to give her a good-bye hug or a kiss? I was so confused that I sort of curtsied.
Of course Maggie laughed at me. And of course I tried to say something to make things better. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but my words came out rhyming.
Janae didn’t laugh or smile quite as much as she did earlier. But she did flee. She ran off with Maggie, and I went to look for Trevor. It took me almost twenty minutes to find him. When I did, he was in the Pointy Image store trying out massage chairs.
Trevor and I filmed a few more things for Mr. Mustache and then talked about getting home before our parents got mad at us.
I was going to wait around for Trevor to put on his safety pads, but he started singing his safety song. I took off before he began the second verse.
