Taffy Sinclair 002 - Taffy Sinclair Strikes Again Read online

  Just then I noticed that Curtis Trowbridge was inching closer and closer to me. I started to panic. I was already at the end of the bench. If I scooted away from him, I'd fall on the floor. But if I didn't and Curtis got really close to me, Randy might see it and get the wrong idea. He might think I liked Curtis and not him. Before I could figure out what to do, I heard this giggling and I looked around. I was really sorry I had done that because what I saw was just too awful to be true. My four FORMER friends were all sitting together a couple of tables away. Not only that, but they were the ones who were making all the noise. They were giggling so loud people were starting to notice, and they were pointing straight at me and Curtis Trowbridge.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I knew I had to do something and do it fast. Randy was gobbling up his lunch like it was his last meal on earth and not paying the slightest bit of attention to anything going on in the cafeteria, not even to me. For once I was really glad. Actually, I was thankful. But it couldn't last long. Any minute he would be sure to look up and see Curtis Trowbridge plastered against me and hear my FORMER friends giggling like mad.

  I decided to get out of there. Taffy was still eating her little bitty sandwiches and dabbing her mouth with a pink paper napkin after every bite. She looked at me just as I scooped my half-eaten lunch into my lunch bag and stood up.

  "I'll meet you on the school ground," I said and then dashed for the door without waiting for her to answer.

  I felt like an idiot the instant I stepped into the hall, but it was too late to go back. They had tricked me. My four FORMER friends had gotten over being mad at one another, and now they had just ganged up on me again and tricked me into running away and making a fool of myself in front of Randy Kirwan. I had noticed they were going around together again, and now I understood why. They were jealous that Randy was crazy about me, and they were doing everything they could to break us up. They had probably paid Curtis Trowbridge to sit down by me and scoot closer and closer so that it looked like I liked him. Then they made all that commotion to attract Randy's attention.

  Well, it hadn't worked, I thought smugly. Randy had just kept right on eating his lunch as if nothing were going on. He had probably seen right through their trick and was ignoring them on purpose. That was it! It had to be. Randy was that kind of person. Remembering that made me feel a lot better.

  "Now don't you believe what I said about a cute boy that likes you?" It was Taffy Sinclair and she had come up behind me so quietly that I almost jumped out of my shoes.

  "Sure," I said. I was trying to act casual, but I could feel my ears getting hot. Of course, she had been watching me when I sent messages to Randy and Scott and Mark that morning before school, and she had noticed how really good I was at body language. She had probably even noticed that it was Randy who called me over. "I just wish he would get around to telling me how he feels, though," I said with a shrug. "I keep giving him all these opportunities."

  Taffy didn't say anything for a moment. Then her face lit up as if she'd just had a brilliant idea. "Maybe he's too shy to say it to your face. Why don't you call him?" she asked brightly.

  "Call him!" I said, shrieking. I hadn't meant to say that so loud, but fortunately there was no one else near us. "I can't do that."

  "Why not? Girls call boys all the time."

  "But what would I say?"

  "Just ask him how he feels about you. I know he's dying to tell you. I'd call him for you, but he's already told me that he likes you once. He would think I was weird if I asked him again."

  The more I thought about calling Randy, the more the idea made sense. I was glad Taffy Sinclair had thought of it. All through class that afternoon I planned what I would say. I would call him as soon as I got home from school. Mom would still be at work so I would have plenty of privacy. I would dial his number, and he would answer after the first ring.

  "Hello," he would say.

  "Hi," I would answer. "This is Jana Morgan."

  "Oh, hi, Jana. I'm so glad you called." His voice would be soft and romantic. "There's something I've been wanting to tell you. . . ."

  "Class! You are not paying attention!" Wiggins thundered the words, breaking into my daydream. She stood at the front of the room and had pulled herself up straight so that she looked about nine feet tall. Her face was an absolute storm cloud. "We'll go over this one more time."

  I really tried to listen to what she was saying. She was explaining about something called a gerund. She said it was a verb ending in ing that was used like a noun. I couldn't help thinking that it was no wonder so many kids had trouble with language arts if some verbs acted like nouns instead of what they really were. Anyway, I concentrated as hard as I could on what she was saying, but I just couldn't keep my mind off Randy and the call I was going to make after school.

  "Hello," he would say.

  "Hi," I would answer. "This is Jana Morgan."

  "Oh, hi, Jana. I'm—I'm so glad you called," he might say shyly and then wait to see what I would say next.

  His voice would be so soft and romantic I wouldn't be nervous at all. Then I'd say, "I was wondering if you'd like to tell me how you really feel about me? . . ."

  But before he could answer, Wiggins let me have it. "Jana Morgan, will you please wake up and then stand up and give your sentence containing a gerund?" Her voice was so loud it sounded as if it were coming over the PA system, and everybody in the whole sixth grade was staring straight at me.

  A gerund. A gerund. My mind was whirling as I tried to stand up, and my ears felt like red-hot pokers stuck to the sides of my head. A verb ending in ing that acts like a noun, I reminded myself.

  Suddenly I thought of one. "Calling someone on the phone is a good idea," I blurted out, and right away I was sorry I had picked that sentence. I sat down fast, but I could see out of the corner of my eye that Randy was still looking at me. I was so embarrassed I thought I'd die.

  I listened to everything that Wiggins had to say for the rest of the afternoon. What else could I do? I had made enough of an idiot of myself for one day. But back in one little wrinkle of my brain a single thought kept throbbing away. I was going to call Randy Kirwan after school.

  When the bell rang at the end of the day, Wiggins said, "Please remain seated for a moment, class. I have an important announcement to make about the Halloween party. Everyone should help, but I believe we should appoint a committee to head things up. Are there any volunteers?"

  Everybody cringed and tried not to look at Wiggins, except Curtis Trowbridge, naturally.

  "I will, Miss Wiggins."

  "Very good, Curtis. Would anyone else like to work on the committee?"

  The silence was deafening. Parties were fun, but working on a committee wasn't, especially a committee with Wiggins and Curtis Trowbridge. I remembered some of the other Halloween parties my FORMER friends and I had gone to, like Beth's last year. The five of us had talked our parents into buying us those glow-in-the-dark skeleton costumes, the kind that are black with white bones painted on them and come with a mask that looks like a skull. We thought we would confuse everyone about who we were, and it worked pretty well, except everyone knew right away which one was Melanie. Even in a skeleton costume she looked fat. But all the same, it had been fun.

  "Well, class," said Wiggins, "since we don't have any other volunteers, I believe I shall appoint Curtis as chairman and let him choose his own committee. Curtis, who would you like to work with you?"

  I grabbed a pencil and ducked down under my desk trying to look as if I were searching for something. When the coast was clear, I planned to come up with the pencil. It may not have been the greatest plan, but it was the best I could come up with on such short notice.

  "Jana Morgan."

  Curtis Trowbridge might as well have been reading from the obituary column. He had just read my death notice at Mark Twain Elementary. I couldn't stand being seen talking to him again. What would Randy think?

  "Taffy Sinclair."
r />   Naturally he picked Taffy. Any boy would. But still it gave me a glimmer of hope. My only friend would be there.

  Curtis hesitated for a minute and then said, "Beth Barry."

  The glimmer blinked out like a firefly turning off its taillight. Curtis Trowbridge, Taffy Sinclair, Beth Barry, and me, all on the same committee. He couldn't have planned it worse if he had spent a million years.

  "Let's see. And I think Sally Schmidt and Randy Kirwan."

  Suddenly being on that committee didn't seem so bad. Together Randy and I would plan the greatest Halloween party the school had ever seen. It would go down in history, and Mrs. Winchell, the principal, would probably give us a special award. I could hardly wait.

  "I think that's enough, Curtis," said Wiggins. "Why don't you arrange to meet with your committee to discuss decorations and refreshments and let me know what plans you make. Class dismissed."

  I hurried to my locker and, of course, that nerd, Curtis Trowbridge, just happened to be there waiting for me.

  "Jana, isn't it great that we're going to be on the Halloween committee together?"

  "Sure, Curtis. Just great," I mumbled.

  Just then I saw my four FORMER friends walking down the hall together. They hadn't seen me yet, and I had to dump Curtis Trowbridge before they did.

  "Gee, Curtis," I said with a smirk. 'Why don't you figure out how long it would take to count to five trillion and then go do it." You would have thought that after a crack like that he would have taken the hint, but he didn't. Instead, he started talking about the Halloween committee again.

  Good grief, I thought. This could go on forever. Of course, my FORMER friends had seen him by this time, and every few steps one of them would look back over her shoulder and laugh. I realized just then that a person had to be careful with body language. It was really powerful stuff and could work too well. For instance, now Curtis Trowbridge and Randy both liked me. Of course, that only proved what I had known about myself all along, and my FORMER friends were about to find out!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After what seemed like an hour, I finally got rid of Curtis Trowbridge and made it home. Mom had left a note on the fridge saying she would be late because she was getting her hair cut. I was glad. That gave me plenty of extra time in case Randy was slow getting home from school or his line was busy.

  I went straight to my room and pitched my books on my bed. Then I peeled off my jacket and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked awful. My hair was a mess, and a bright red zit was starting to puff up beside my nose. How could I call Randy looking like such a wreck? I tore into the bathroom and washed my face. That only made my zit look redder. Then I spotted Mom's tawny beige makeup and dabbed a blob on my zit. I smiled at myself with satisfaction and ran the hairbrush through my hair. I was ready. It was now or never.

  I marched into the living room and stood squarely in front of the phone. Suddenly I felt prickly, as if a thousand spiders were creeping up my spine.

  What if Randy wasn't glad I called, the way I imagined he would be in my daydreams at school? What if he had changed his mind about me since he talked to Taffy Sinclair? What if he even hung up when he found out who was calling? I would be so embarrassed I'd die. I would never be able to face him again. I would stop going to school and hide out in the basement of our apartment building. Then I would start the sixth grade all over again next year after Randy had gone on to junior high.

  Suddenly I got this great idea. I would call Randy, but I would disguise my voice. I would tell him I was a friend of Jana Morgan, and I would talk so differently that he would never know who I was. That way I could still find out how he felt about me, but if he said something awful, he would never know he had said it to me.

  I tried to remember all the movies I had seen where people disguised their voices on the phone. Didn't they always put a handkerchief or something over the part you talk into? I raced to my room. I didn't have a handkerchief but I had lots of knee socks. There were at least a dozen scattered around the floor. I grabbed a clean one out of the drawer, hurried back to the phone and pulled the sock onto the receiver until the toe was over the mouthpiece. Then I pushed down the button to shut off the sound of the dial tone and practiced my disguise.

  "Hi. May I speak to Randy, please?"

  Naturally my voice sounded high and squeaky and exactly like me. I didn't believe a knee sock over the mouthpiece would do much about that. I had to think of something else.

  I stomped around the apartment for the next few minutes, looking for ideas. Nothing in the living room, the kitchen, or the bedrooms gave me a single clue. Then I stepped into the bathroom to dab some more makeup on my zit, and I saw what I was looking for. Cotton balls. Mom kept a little bowl of them on the vanity to use when she creamed her face. I grabbed a handful and started stuffing them into my mouth. They would surely change the way my voice sounded.

  "Argh!"

  I gagged and spit them into the sink. I tried to think of something else I could stuff into my mouth that wouldn't make me gag, but I couldn't think of anything. I would have to use them. Calling Randy was too important. I couldn't give up now.

  As soon as I stopped gagging, I poked them inside my cheeks one at a time and then stood back to look at myself. I was certainly glad that telephones with TV screens were still in the future. My face looked as swollen as if I had mononucleosis. I giggled at that. Everybody said mono was the kissing disease.

  I knew Randy's phone number by heart. I had memorized it a long time ago when I first started to like him. I had memorized a lot of other things about him, too. Actually, I had memorized everything I could find out about him. For instance, I knew that his full name was Randal Spencer Kirwan and that his birthday was January 31. I knew that his father's name is Robert and that he's an electrician. His mother's name is Helen, and she sells real estate. He has an older sister, Kathy, in college and a dog, a registered keeshond named Heidi. I even saw his father's car once and memorized everything about it including the license plate number which is RK 4097.

  Anyway, I picked up the receiver and held it so that my mouth was right over the toe of my knee sock while I dialed his number. It was hard to dial because my hands were shaky and my heart was pounding as if it were about to explode.

  The phone rang. I held my breath and waited. Maybe I had picked a bad time to call. Maybe Randy was busy. Maybe his whole family was busy. Much too busy to answer the phone.

  It rang again. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but the cotton balls made my mouth too dry. Maybe they were so busy that if they took the time to answer the phone they would be really mad at whoever was calling.

  The third ring. I knew I had better hang up before disaster struck.

  "Hello."

  It was Randy! He had answered the phone himself! I tried to say hello, but all that came out was a rush of air.

  "Hello!" he repeated. "Is anyone there?"

  I had been right. He had been too busy to answer the phone, and now he was mad. Maybe I should just hang up and not bother him any longer. No, I thought. This was my big chance. I had to go through with it.

  "He-wo," I said, realizing I had forgotten to practice talking with cotton balls in my mouth. My tongue wouldn't go where it was supposed to, and my lips wouldn't meet, but I couldn't back out now. "Is this Wandy?"

  "Yeah, but who is this?"

  My disguise was working. Not only that, but I, Jana Morgan, was actually having a conversation with Randy Kirwan on the phone. I took a deep breath and went on.

  "I'b a fwied of Ja-ha Orga, ad I'b cawig to ask you how you weally feew about her."

  "A friend of who? And why are you talking so funny, anyway?"

  I grinned as well as I could with such a fat face. He really didn't know who I was.

  "Ja-ha Orga," I said as clearly as I could, "ad I hab a code ad a stuffy node."

  "Oh," he said sounding really puzzled. "Well, what's your name? Do you go to Mark Twain Elementary?"

/>   "You dote dow be. I'b frub out of towd. I just watt to dow how you feew about Ja-ha Orga."

  "Look," he said crossly, and I winced. "How I feel about Jana Morgan is none of your business. How I feel about anyone is private and something I'll tell that person when I want to." Then he hung up.

  I was so excited I thought I'd die. I just stood there, holding that receiver to my ear. The dial tone sounded like music. He had said it. He had said that he would tell me how he felt about me when he wanted to. That could mean only one thing. Randy Kirwan was crazy about me just like Taffy Sinclair had said he was.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I could hardly wait to walk to school with Taffy Sinclair the next morning and tell her about calling Randy on the phone.

  "You actually did it?" she asked. And I could tell she was really impressed.

  "Of course," I answered smugly.

  "Well, what did he say?"

  I went on to tell her how I had fooled him by disguising my voice and how he planned to tell me himself how he felt about me. I even told her how grateful I was that she had taught me body language. She gave me a funny look when I said that.

  Anyway, by the time I got to school, I was feeling that my life was just about perfect, and I crossed and uncrossed my fingers three times that this would be the day Randy would talk to me. I didn't see him on the school ground, but when I went to my room, he was already there. I sat down at my desk, trying to decide if I should send him a message in body language before the last bell rang.

  Just then Beth came into the room and right behind her were Melanie and Katie and Christie. They walked in like they owned the place. But that's not all. They were wearing blue T-shirts that said The Fabulous FOUR!