Six out of eight members of the Supersquare shrugged off the loss. But Sara and Manda weren’t going down without a fight.
“Omigod! Mr. Armbruster! They cheated!”
“Flying the coop? Puh-leeze. There’s no such thing!”
Mr. Armbruster and the International Square Dance Association judges assured them that we did not cheat and that there is such a thing. They would not waver in their decision, even after Sara made the usual threats about Daddy’s lawyer.
“The decision stands!” Mr. Armbruster took off his cowboy hat and threw it into the air. “These are our champions!”
And the eight of us had just enough time for a group WHOOP! before my parents came rushing at me with eyes bigger than their belt buckles.
“Jessie! I never knew you had it in you!” Mom marveled.
“Had what in me?” I asked.
“Whatever it was we just saw!” Dad joked.
Added bonus to being in the moment? The whole time I was dancing, I didn’t worry about how my parents might be embarrassing me. And I was on such a hoedown high, I actually told them so.
“I know I gave you a hard time—” I started.
“See?” Mom interrupted. “I told you it would be fun for all of us!”
My mother is never above an I-told-you-so. NEVER.
“You did,” my dad admitted. “You told us so.”
And then he patted me on the back to let me know he found Mom’s I-told-you-so as irritating as I did.
“I’m happy you came,” I admitted when we reached the car. “Because I have no idea how I would’ve described what happened!”
And for the first time in a long time, all three of us laughed.
Everyone was being picked up by their parents at the same time. It was a sloooooow exit out of the parking lot. There was a lot of noise, so it took a minute before I realized the car next to us was honking rhythmically to get our attention.
Honk! Honk! Honkity-honk!
Honk! Honk! Honkity-honk!
Aleck was in the passenger seat of the honking car. He gestured for me to roll down the window.
“I’m really glad you asked me to be your partner!”
Me too, I thought, before quickly taking it back in my brain because I hadn’t asked him to be my partner. Molly and Mouth had paired up, so it just kind of worked out that way. But I didn’t say this or anything else too revealing, because my parents were listening and my mom would ask, like, a bazillion questions about who Aleck is and what exactly I’d meant when I said those two words, and I was already semidreading all her questions about the dance itself and just couldn’t deal with a whole new interrogation on top of it.
So I just rolled my eyes and half smiled like “Okay. Whatever you say.”
And then he shouted something I couldn’t quite hear over the rumble of all the idling car engines.
“What?”
“I said,” he shouted louder, “I guess you really do miss me when I’m not around!”
THAT’S WHAT I’D THOUGHT HE SAID.
Did this mean Aleck didn’t burn the Top Secret Pineville Junior High Crushability Quiz like he said he did? Or did he read it first, then burn it? Or did he not read it at all and burned it like he said he did and he’s just innocently joking around and I’m just totally paranoid because I know I wrote his name for dumb trick question #5 and he doesn’t?
But then the traffic opened up, and his car sped off, and I didn’t get to any of those questions—not that I would have shouted them out the window with my parents in the front seat. To be honest, I doubt I’ll ask Aleck in Woodshop on Monday, either, even if it’s my only opportunity to confront him somewhere he can’t make a quick escape. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned about stressing, obsessing, and second-guessing, it’s this: I’m much better off when I don’t try so hard to know everything.