Mom flies beside me while I hoof it back to school. “Sherry, Paula’s doing all those things for you and Sam and Dad that I can’t. Driving you to appointments, making sure homework is done, cooking, cleaning. The list goes on,” she says. “She really cares for you guys. We’re lucky to have her.”
“Yeah, I know.” I sigh. “But I just want you. I want the old days back.”
“Me too, me too,” Mom says softly. “But that’s not going to happen. And you can’t take it out on Paula.”
I sigh again. “We better make sure we catch the stalker.”
“Got any ideas on where to start?”
“There’s a staff meeting after classes today,” I say.
“Great!” Mom’s all over an investigation. “I’ll eavesdrop to get a sense of how the staff feels about Paula. The stalker could be one of them.”
At the edge of school property, I stop and rub the toe of my ballet slipper on the curb. Saguaro Middle School is a closed campus, which means you’re not allowed off the grounds during the day. Unless a parent signs you out for an ortho appointment or whatever. So leaving and getting back to class can be kind of tricky. And kind of a fun challenge.
“I’ll go on my own from here,” I say.
Mom laughs. “You were always good at hide-and-seek.”
I wend my way through the school parking lot, crouching down low between cars. A quick dash puts me by the foreign languages classrooms. I round the corner and screech to a halt.
Yikes. It’s Ms. Ortiz, the vice principal. All Nancy Drewish, I tiptoe back to the side of the building, flatten myself and wait, barely breathing.
Ms. Ortiz gazes around, then heads toward the office. The second she’s out of sight, I beeline it to French.
Just as Madame Blanchard’s closing the door, I squeeze through.
Le français is not my thing; I’m generally clueless about what’s going on in there, but it’s still the best period of the day. Madame Blanchard, aka Madame Babblepants, has zero control over the class. Translation: I can always catch up on the daily gossip, indulge in some creative doodling and, my fave activity, daydream about Josh.
The desks are pushed together in pairs. I usually don’t sit with Junie, who takes French way too seriously. But today I make an exception; I’ve gotta get her take on the stalker business.
“Comment ça va?” Junie asks.
“Je m’appelle Sherry,” I answer, sliding into the seat next to her.
“I asked how you’re doing, not what your name is.” Junie rolls her eyes.
“Puhleeze. You asked in French. I answered in French.” I roll my eyes back at her. “Works for me.”
“How crazy was the meeting with your mom and her guidance counselor?”
“Beyond crazy.” I tell her about the Cinnabon-scented, Southern-speaking Mrs. Howard with her Blizzard gift, espresso beans and evil hologram screen. “And guess what? Mom and I have a new assignment. Apparently, The Ruler has a stalker.”
Junie’s somewhat bushy eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Really?”
“I know, I know. El shockeroo. Have you seen anything that would make you think she does? Because I haven’t.” I scoot my backpack under the desk, cross my ankles and rest my feet on it. “Is The Ruler bizarre? Yes. Annoying? Yes. Old? Yes. Stalked? News to me.”
Junie’s tongue pokes out between her teeth, a sign she’s thinking hard. “She’s been pretty clumsy lately. Like in math this morning? She could not hold on to the pointer to save her life.” Junie lines up a pen and a highlighter. “She’s been ditzy too. In robotics club the other day, she was hunting in the tool chest for motion sensors. You know what those are, right? For the front and back of our robot, so if it bumps into something—”
“Earth to Junie. It’s me you’re talking to.” I make hurry-up-and-spit-it-out circles with my hand. “Ixnay on the details.”
She frowns. “The Ruler was looking for some things. She couldn’t find them. When I looked, there were a bunch of them. Right in view, on top of some other things.” She looks at me, her eyebrows raised. “That explanation work for you?”
“Absolutely. Nice and simple.”
Junie butts her special stripy notebook for her French notes up against the pen and highlighter on her desk. “Maybe the stuff with the pointer and the motion sensors is a sign that she’s worried about having a stalker?”
“Nah,” I say. “She doesn’t even know she has one. She’s just mega overextended. What with teaching and my dad gone and robotics.” Hands above my head, I squeeze my hair clip. “Like, she’s normally so fanatical about housework with all-natural products and lots of cleaning and dusting and HEPA-filter vacuuming. But I’ve noticed our place doesn’t smell too good lately. And, she lost her keys again this a.m.”
“Yeah, well, this is our busiest time in robotics.” Junie pulls a paperback French-English dictionary from her backpack. “We’re almost at the end of the six weeks allotted to build our bot and test it out at the practice competition. The whole team is frazzled.”
Someone needs a major reality check. “Frazzled” and “robotics club” so don’t go together.
At the front of the class, Madame Babblepants begins her daily nonsensical, uh, babble.
“Hmmm,” Junie mumbles at me, her eyes all focused on Madame, who’s handing Nerdy Nick a stack of worksheets to pass out.
Flinging a couple on my desk, Nerdy Nick says, “Hey, Sherry, wanna save us all some time?” He picks up Junie’s pen and marks a big F at the top of my first paper.
In a smooth move, Junie reaches out a hand for her pen and transforms the F into an A. “Be nice, Nick.”
Miracle of miracles, he actually goes red and mumbles, “Sorry, Sherry.”
Who knew Junie had such power?
In the meantime, Junie’s hunched over her desk, diving into verb conjugations. Like they’re peanut butter and jelly, you cannot separate Junie from her 4.0.
We’ve been best friends for ages, ever since beginner swimming, even though we’re pretty much polar opposites. Junie’s brilliant and into school, like an engineer or something. I’m social and fashionable and into boys. With such different talents, we can really help each other out.
I watch her for a second while she messes with the verb conduire. From the cartoon picture of a car on the worksheet, I’m guessing it means “to drive.” I watch Junie’s pen fly over the page, drawing lines to match up je conduis with “I drive” and tu conduis with “you drive.” When she hits nous conduisons/we drive, I figure out where I’m headed next, mysterywise.