Beat the Band (Swim the Fly #2)(23)

I am in too good a mood to give Andy any kind of reaction. I just wipe the ketchup off with my sneaker and pretend it never happened. Andy’s amateur hour. If he was really thinking, he would have put the packets on my seat. Gotten some tan paint from art class to camouflage them. Now that would have been a prank.

Prudence is at her desk, across the aisle from me, working the keyboard on her phone, looking like the perfect goddess she is. Her perky yabbos are doing a pretty good impression of a couple of Hostess Sno Balls below her form-fitting fuzzy pink sweater. My breath catches and my heart pounds out a thrash metal beat. I shake my head to break the spell, otherwise I might actually leap across the aisle and bury my face right into her marshmallowy goodness.

“Hey there, you,” I say to her. “Kudos on getting into the Battle of the Bands, by the way. Looks like you and me have yet another thing in common.”

Nothing. Which makes me smile. I like a challenge.

“So, who do you think our biggest competition is?” I ask.

“I don’t care,” Prudence says, her attention squarely on her phone.

“I bet Cheeba Pet is real good. At least, they look the part.” I laugh.

Prudence sighs, her purple-polished fingernails clicking away on her phone’s keyboard. Punching the letters harder than before.

“Of course, if you girls want to win, you’re gonna have to get through us first. Which means you’re gonna have to beat the Bologna. Is that something you think you can handle?”

She’s ignoring me with a vengeance. I love it.

“Here’s a thought,” I say. “We should organize an after party. Don’t you think? With a theme. Like, I don’t know, Garden of Eden or something. You, Gina, Bronte, and Kelly could come over to my house today and we could start planning it. We could all try on some fig leaves. Tempt each other with apples. It’ll be dope. What do you say?”

Prudence slams her cell shut and turns on me. “God! How does it feel to be such an * all of the time?”

I smile, because now she’s engaged. “This is crazy. When are we going to stop fooling ourselves and just admit that we both want to dance the rug rumba?”

“Right.” Prudence snorts. “I’d rather have sex with a monkey.”

“Whoa. Hello. She’s gorgeous and a freak. I’m down with that. I mean, we couldn’t ever tell anyone, ’cause most people wouldn’t understand. But yeah, all right. You know anyone who’s got a monkey?”

Prudence shakes her head. “I hate you.” She flips her phone open again.

“You know what they say about the line between love and hate.”

The door to the classroom flies open and Mrs. Turris enters, hefting a stack of books and papers and looking frazzled. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she says, bustling over to her desk and dumping all her stuff.

Suddenly she stops and stares at us like she’s just caught us whizzing all over the room. “Why aren’t you with your partners already? Do I have to hold your hands every single day? Let’s go. Up.”

“Thank God.” Prudence leaps to her feet, grabs her books, and moves across the room to Sam Shattenkirk’s desk.

“Today’s the last day I’m giving you class time for these projects,” Mrs. Turris says. “So make good use of it.”

The rest of the kids in the class grumble and take their sweet time getting together with their respective partners. The room fills with the cacophony of thirty people all talking to each other at once.

I look over at Helen, who’s got her textbook open and her pen going a million miles an hour. Again. She doesn’t even glance in my direction. She’s probably still mad because I stood her up at the library. But it’s cool. I’ll get her to cover for me. She’s got as much to lose as I do.

I drag myself over, pull a desk up close to Helen before Mrs. Turris does it for me. “So. What should I be doing?”

“That’s a good question.” Helen doesn’t look up from her work. Yup, she’s pissed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“So, tell me what you want me to do.”

“Same answer as before.” She’s gripping her pen so tightly her knuckles are turning white. She’s not so much writing as carving letters into her notebook.

“You want me to do nothing?”

“It’s what you’re good at.”

I feel my neck and cheeks flame. “Hey, look, I was going to come to the library, okay? I just lost track of time.”

“I waited for you for nearly an hour.”

“Well, I was really busy on Sunday. In case you didn’t hear, my group just got accepted into the Battle of the Bands.”

“Congratulations,” she says flatly. “You must be really happy.”

“I am, as a matter of fact. It’s a pretty major accomplishment. I was rehearsing all weekend. And the library just . . . slipped my mind.” I glance over at the teacher. “But if Mrs. T asks, we were both there the whole time, ’kay? Remember what she said about us both getting detention?”

“Great. Good. Fine,” Helen says.

“Anyway, I’m here now,” I say. “So let’s put a dent in this bad boy.”

Helen glares up at me from her notebook. She puts her pen down and rubs her hand. “Listen. I’ve decided I’m going to do our projects on my own.”