Beat the Band (Swim the Fly #2)(28)

I make eye contact with the girls, then point surreptitiously toward the librarian in her glass-enclosed office. “Miss Jerooni’s been floating air bagels ever since we got here,” I say. “It got so bad we finally had to ask her to go sit in her office.”

“I thought this was the library, not the bathroom,” Bronte says through her cupped hand.

“Prudence.” Gina pinches her nose and looks like she might cry. “I think I’m going to puke. Literally.”

Prudence rolls her eyes. “Like that would be so bad for you.”

Gina looks mortified. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, just shut up and go find the dress pattern books.”

“I hate smelly smells,” Gina whimpers nasally.

Prudence clenches her jaw and hisses through her teeth, “Then stop wasting time and go get the goddamn books. Both of you.” She shoos them away.

Bronte and Gina scurry off, huddled close together like scolded children.

Prudence sighs, then looks and me. “Why would you stay and wallow in this stink?”

“I don’t have a choice.” I gesture toward Helen sitting at the computer in the back of the room. “I tried to ditch Helen as my partner. All I got was detention.”

She glances at Helen. “Ew. She’s here?” Prudence makes a face. “I don’t know how you can work with it. I wouldn’t be able to.”

“Yeah, well, Fate screwed me,” I say. This is good. We both feel bad for me. People have leaped into the sack with much less in common. “Seems like the harder I try to get out of it, the more time I end up having to spend with her.”

Prudence’s eyes slide back to me. Then to Helen. Then to me again. “Maybe you just haven’t tried the right thing.”

“What do you mean?”

Prudence gestures with her head toward the door. “Take a break. In the hall.”

Most people would worry that, with a gut full of gas, they might end up carving off a hunk of havarti right in front of one of the hottest girls in the entire school. But I’m not most people. I have near-superhuman control over my sphinc. I once bet Matt and Sean that I could beef out the first verse of “Amazing Grace.” It was the easiest ten bucks I ever made.

Prudence lures me through the door and into the hall, her body looking assassin in a lion-print top and hip-clinging jeans. The serpent tattoo on the bull’s-eye of her lower back just barely visible.

Oh, God. If I could just spend one night with her, running around and around the bases, it’d totally be worth dying for. Because, really, after that, what would you have to look forward to?

Well, unless of course you could get her friends to join the baseball game for a seventh-inning stretch. Now that would be worth sticking around for.

Prudence turns and flashes a sex kitten grin at me. “She’s been slagging you, you know? I mean, you’ve probably already heard, but just in case you hadn’t, I thought you should know.”

“Helen? Really?” My stomach gurgles its displeasure. I clear my throat to try to mask the sound. “What’s she been saying?”

“Talking smack. What else? For one, she says you’ve been coming on to her —”

“That’s bullshit.” I’m so surprised that a breezer nearly takes flight without authority from air traffic control. But I clench my butt cheeks right quick and abort the launch.

“She said you asked her to the movies. And that you tried to make out with her.”

I shake my head. “Are you for serial? Why would she say that?”

“Pfff.” Prudence smirks. “Because that’s who she is. Why do you think everyone hates her so much? She’s a liar. And a bitch. You don’t get that despised for no reason, right?”

I glance toward the library. “Yeah, I guess.”

Prudence leans in close, the warm peach smell of her breath on my cheek. “So, do you want to hear my plan?”

“Got ’em,” Bronte says, stepping from the library and waving a couple of dress pattern books in the air.

Gina lets out the breath she’s obviously been holding this whole time. She gasps. “I swear. I literally almost died in there. Literally. Who knew Miss Jerooni was such a stanky skank?”

Prudence looks at her friends. “I’ve just be telling Cutie Coop here what the Sausage Queen’s been saying about him around school.”

Cutie Coop? Whoa. Did I miss something? When did we start referring to each other by endearing pet names? Not that I’m complaining. Sure, it’s not the butchest nickname in the world, but coming from the lips of such a hottie, I kind of love it!

Bronte looks momentarily confused, then grins. “Oh, yeah. The rumors. They’re pretty bad.”

“I hate false rumors,” Gina says, looking at her fingernails. “Especially when they’re not even true.”

“You guys heard Helen talking about me?”

“Totally.” Bronte laughs. “Everyone’s heard.” She glances at Prudence, who starts circling me.

Prudence plays with the gold necklace that dangles around her cleavage. “What do you think, girls? Shall we help the poor lamb?”

Gina tilts her head, giggling. “He does kind of look like a lamb. Like the cute little chubby one I sleep with every night.”