Dreamland Social Club(73)

He threw his hands up into the air. “There aren’t any rats!”

“And your father hasn’t stopped paying his rent?”

“That’s just a flat-out lie.”

“Are you sure?”

He was winding the dial on his combination lock. “Your father’s obviously been fed some crazy propaganda. And I mean, seriously”—he pulled his lock open, then opened the locker door—“your dad isn’t the first person I’d trust right about now.”

“It was just a question.”

“Whatever, Jane.” He started putting away books, taking out others. “Why don’t you go back to looking for journals and solving mysteries about keys and teasing Legs and holding carousel horses hostage and whatever else it is you do.”

Jane didn’t like being whatever-ed and liked what came after it even less and, stunned, let herself drift into the flow of kids in the hall and bumped right into Legs, who’d obviously decided to hover. Had she been teasing him? Just by being friends?

He said, “Hey, do you have any tickets to the presentation?”

She nodded and saw, on the bulletin board, a flier that hadn’t been there that morning.

dreamland social club

TODAY. UNFINISHED BUSINESS.



“Can I have one?” Legs said. “I’m covering it for the paper and I want to make sure I get in.”

“Sure,” Jane said.

A meeting?

Today?

Babette need to chill. Out.

“Thanks,” he said, then nodded toward Leo’s locker. “I hope he apologized.” Legs shook his head. “The guy has lost all perspective.”

“He’s just upset,” she said, not wanting to make things worse. “I mean, it’s his father’s bar.”

“You know what, Jane?”

“What?” she snapped. She closed her locker and Legs looked like he was going to say something really urgent, and then he just huffed and said, “Never mind.”





She had been planning on finding the Claveracks that day, to tell them about her decision about the horse. But when she saw them picking on a dowdy freshman between classes, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. And really, it didn’t have anything to do with them—with Harvey and Cliff. It was their grandfather she should be talking to. He was the one who’d made the damn thing. He was the one who cared, if anyone did.

Did anyone really care as much as she did?

About anything?





She went to the meeting of the Dreamland Social Club after school, hoping that the spirit of the club would make everything better. But the mood was icy, at best. Nothing like it was the first time she’d walked in, just last week, and even then, there’d been Minnie’s and Venus’s cool stares to contend with.

“Let’s get down to it so we can get out of here,” Babette said, obviously sensing the tension.

“We need people to take the lead on the funeral bier,” Babette said. “We either need to build something with wheels or we need to find some kind of wagon or cart that we can decorate, because holding something or carrying it that whole time will be too much.”

“I have some ideas,” H.T. said, so Babette wrote his name down, and then Legs said, “Me, too,” so she wrote again.

“Music.” Babette looked over at Leo, who said, “I’ll scare up a dirge band the likes of which you’ve never heard.”

“Excellent,” Babette said, and then she added, “And we need to pick a mermaid.”

There was a moment of silence before she said, “I nominate Jane.”

Venus snapped, “Why her?”

“Yeah,” Minnie said. “Why her?”

“Well, look at the rest of us,” Babette said. “We’re not exactly mermaid material.”

“I’m mermaid material.” Rita puffed up her breasts.

Venus snorted. “When’s the last time anybody saw a Puerto Rican mermaid?”

“Same time they saw a mermaid with tattoos,” Rita snapped.

“I’m starting to question the rules of membership in this club,” Leo said from the back of the room, and Jane’s face burned. “Me, too,” she said. “Because the whole idea was that it wasn’t going to become a clique and it is. None of you would really know what to do if someone really different, someone who challenged you, walked through that door.”

“You know what?” Leo said. “I told my mother I wouldn’t be late.”

And he left.

And then Venus followed, saying to Jane, “You really want to be a dead fish, go ahead.”

Minnie left, too, saying, “I wouldn’t want to just lie there the whole time anyway.”

Rita left, then Legs, and Babette said, “Then it’s decided.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jane said, and Babette said, “Unless anyone objects on the record?”

H.T. said, “This seems like a decision for the womenfolk.”

“Then Jane it is.” Babette wrote something down, seeming pleased. She declared the meeting adjourned.

“You should have asked me first,” Jane said to Babette after H.T. skated away.