I’d hardly had any time to congratulate myself on this master stroke of brilliance when Sara came charging at us in full freak-out.
“This is a disaster!” Sara screeched. “They’re not supposed to be in the gym now!”
“Who?” I asked.
“The wrestling team! They’re practicing in the gym this afternoon! Of all afternoons!”
“If I’m not mistaken,” Aleck said, “they practice there every afternoon.”
Mr. Pudel arrived on the scene to inspect all the decorations before installation.
“My plans!” Sara shrieked at him. “My plans are ruined!”
“Bruiser,” Mr. Pudel said calmly, “before drawing up your elaborate plans, did you even check to make sure the gymnasium was free this afternoon?”
“Omigod!” was all Sara could bring herself to say.
“Lucky for you, they’ll be finished by four,” Mr. Pudel assured her. “Plenty of time to set up.”
“See?” I said to Sara. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Easy for you to say, with your nonexistent beauty routine,” Sara said. “I’ve got appointments starting at three thirty. Hair! Nails! Exfoliation!”
“We’ll be fine without you,” Mr. Pudel said.
Sara hesitated.
“Mr. Pudel takes great pride in his work,” I insisted, “and will expect nothing less than perfection from his volunteers.”
Mr. Pudel nodded. Aleck grinned. Mouth scowled.
“Okay,” Sara agreed reluctantly. “But if there’s so much as a… a… strand of hay out of place…”
And she took off without even bothering to finish the threat.
I was actually pretty excited by this turn of events. I’d wanted to see Molly wrestle ever since I’d heard about her making the team! But we had a lot of work to do first. Just getting all the decorations from one side of the school to the other required many hands and several trips. When we were finally done transporting everything for the dance from the Woodshop to just outside the gym, there were only about ten minutes left in her practice.
Still, that was just enough time to watch Molly beat an eighth-grade boy in a rope-climbing race. She ascended hand over hand to the ceiling like it was the easiest thing in the world! It wasn’t the same as a match, of course, but it was still pretty cool to see her more than hold her own with the boys. Aleck, Mouth, and I stopped her on the way to the girls’ locker room.
“Molly! You’re amazing! You kicked that boy’s butt!”
“Thanks,” she said shyly, wiping sweat from her brow.
“You flew up that rope faster than I ever could,” Aleck admitted.
“Thanks,” she said again, looking at her feet.
“Hey, is Coach Wall making your team go to the dance tonight?”
I normally wouldn’t have asked Molly about the dance, but I remembered what Scotty and Burke had said about their coach making it mandatory.
“Yeah. I’m supposed to. But my partner from gym class isn’t going, because he’s got a gaming date with his online girlfriend, so…”
Well, that was unexpected. Not what Molly said—apparently a lot of kids cuddle up to their game controllers on Friday nights—but how she said it. She sounded disappointed. And that tiny, tough girl who strong-armed her way to the ceiling is not someone who looks like she’d be bummed about missing a cornball square dance.
I’d obviously never taken the time to look hard enough.
“Well,” Mouth said.
We all turned. It was the first time he’d spoken all afternoon.
“There’s an advantage to holding the dance after wrestling practice.”
“What’s that?” Aleck asked encouragingly.
“It already smells like a barn in here!”
While I was happy to see Mouth returning to his jokey self, I wished his recovery hadn’t been at Molly’s expense. I mean, who’d blame her for getting upset? Her sweat had contributed to the B.O. he was joking about! But Molly totally took me by surprise—again!—by looking directly at Mouth and letting out a huge whoop of laughter.
And that’s when I had another brilliant idea. I just had to ask.
And this time, I didn’t hesitate.