Beat the Band (Swim the Fly #2)(54)

“I haven’t spent that much time with her. And I haven’t developed anything.”

Prudence and Bronte crack up at this.

“Relax, Coopee.” Prudence smiles and grabs my arm. “We’re going to take care of this one on our own. It’ll be painful for her. Like ripping a few hundred Band-Aids off her hairy arm. But it’s the right thing to do. In the end, everyone will be happier for it.”

The girls turn and head off down the hall, laughing and whispering to each other as they go. I stand there and watch them turn the corner, annoyed that they wouldn’t tell me what they have planned for Helen.

But also glad that they didn’t. Because there’s a part of me that’s worried for her. Even though I know leaving the school would probably be the best thing that ever happened to her. Not to mention how much it will help me and my sitch.

Still. I hope it’s not something too, too awful.





“ARE YOU OKAY, COOP?” Helen asks. “You look exhausted.”

I pull my hands down my face, feeling totally drained. “Chorus people are brutal.”

She clicks a link on the library computer. “I didn’t know you were in chorus.”

“I’m not. Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” I gesture at the screen. “Let’s just get the stupid contraceptive statistics and get out of here.”

Who knew it was possible to ask sixty different people the same question and get the exact same response every time? It’s taken me two weeks to get through everyone in the school chorus, but it wasn’t until I crossed the last five people off my list today that I lost all hope of finding a new singer for our band.

“Okay, write this down,” Helen says. “Teenage girls who are sexually active and avoid using any type of contraception have a ninety percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year.”

I scribble down this statistic in my notebook, though I’m not sure I get everything exactly right as my mind is spinning like a pinwheel in a hurricane.

My only chance now is that Helen gets her acceptance letter quickly and decides to transfer to Our Lady of Mercy before the end of the semester. Then Sean can go back to being our singer and we can still attain — if not full-on rock-god fame — then at least demigod status.

Helen reads, “Forty-eight percent of all new STD cases each year will occur among people age fifteen to twenty-four.”

And being a rock-and-roll demigod is certainly good enough to get a nice sampling of groupies who’d be willing to do some base running.

Helen scrolls down the screen. “Nearly fifty percent of all Americans age fifteen to nineteen have had sex at least one time.”

I copy this down, wishing that I was one of the lucky forty-six percent. Thinking about how my plan of joining the more fortunate half of the population by year’s end is in serious danger of being completely demolished. Wondering why Helen talking about contraception, pregnancy, and STDs is turning me on so much.

“Most teen pregnancies — over eighty percent — are unplanned,” Helen continues.

I hate to admit it — and I never would to anyone — but the fact that Helen’s such an incredible singer is just adding to my confused state of mind. It’s like she’s got this inner fire that comes blasting out when she sings that leaves me shifting on my drum stool with a colossal stalagmite in my shorts.

“Twenty-five percent of teen females and eighteen percent of teen males won’t use any kind of protection the first time they have sex,” Helen reads.

Though maybe it’s not her singing at all. Because all she’s doing now is talking and it’s having the exact same effect on me.

“Cooper? Why aren’t you writing this down?” Helen’s deep hazel eyes are fixed on me.

I blink. Close my mouth, which, apparently, has been hanging open. I look down at my pen hovering ineffectually over the nearly empty notebook page.

“I . . . um . . . got distracted. Sorry. I was thinking about something.” Come on, Coop. You can do better than that. Unless, of course, you want to tell her what’s really on your mind. “Your mother,” I say, which wilts my wang like salt on a slug. “I was just . . . wondering how she was feeling. You know. If she was still stressed. And on stress leave. You know, Sean and her have already done several World of Warcraft quests together. He says she’s pretty good.”

Helen looks away. Her neck flushes. “Listen, I wasn’t totally honest with you, Coop. About my mom. She’s not on stress leave. She’s on disability. She hasn’t worked in over a year.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling like the biggest A-hole on the planet for bringing up her disabled mother in order to bail me out of an awkward situation.

“She has Lyme disease.”

The question forms in my head, though I stop myself from actually asking it.

“It’s a bacteria that affects your nervous system,” Helen says, reading my mind. “It makes her dizzy and tired and shaky. A lot of the time she’ll get bad headaches.” Helen grabs the mouse and starts scrolling down the screen again. “It’s not like she’s going to die or anything. You just can’t clean people’s teeth very well when you feel like that.”

“Huh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

Way to go, Coop old buddy. You tricked a sickly woman into signing an application form for her tormented daughter. How do you feel about yourself now? What’s next? Signing up to hunt baby seals?