Best Kept Secret Read online

  I also stressed about Edith. Would we ever talk to her again, and would she be angry with us? We could have issued a PLS-SOS, but I once heard that it’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. What if we told her what we’re doing and she said no? What if she was really mad at us for getting caught in the first place?

  OK, I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I was also worried my mom and dad would find out. They were not exactly pleased when the principal came to our house. They gave me a million different reasons why I shouldn’t have done what I did. But now we were out there on our own, dancing on a thin pink wire.

  Four

  News flash: Forrest McCann broke up with Taylor Mayweather!

  The news flew in my ears, my brain, and then up and down every nerve in my body. I overflowed with emotion. I could barely speak, but at the same time I couldn’t wait to talk about it. One problem: I was inside a bathroom stall.

  Outside by the sinks, Taylor was talking to Tia. I heard her say, “Yeah, he broke up with me, but it was kind of like he was cheating on me.”

  “Forrest was two-timing you?” Tia asked, as if that was so impossible to imagine.

  “Not exactly,” Taylor said, “Music is his other girlfriend. That stupid guitar—it’s all he wants to talk about or do. Now, who am I going to ask to the Backward Dance?”

  First, Piper. Now, Taylor. It seemed like everyone knew about Forrest’s guitar playing except for me. (His band is another thing I should have asked him about that day in the car after the bee attack.) I wondered if I should quickly pick up some easy-to-learn instrument, like the triangle, and ask if I could join his band. The Backward Dance was another question. I also wondered if I should ask Forrest to go with me before someone else got to him first.

  Here’s what’s backward about the Backward Dance: Girls have to ask the boys. Of course, technically, girls can always ask boys, but hardly anyone does. Why is that? And why didn’t Taylor say anything about Forrest moving? Maybe he broke up with Taylor because he was leaving town, and she didn’t even know!

  But the answers to all those questions would have to come later. I first had to figure out how to gracefully exit my bathroom stall. Should I have bolted out and washed my hands like I hadn’t heard a thing? I had been so very quiet: I didn’t even tear a square of toilet paper while I eavesdropped. I would have startled them if I had just darted out. I probably should have cleared my throat when I was in the middle of listening in, so they’d have known they weren’t alone.

  Instead, I stood there, pants zipped, wishing I could wait in the stall until they left. But time was too tight and I had to get to gym class. I fake-coughed, flushed, and tried not to make any eye contact as I washed and dried my hands. Taylor and Tia said nothing to me or each other. As I placed two hands on the exit door, my grin was a mile wide.

  At study hall, I followed my usual routine, sneaking behind the cafeteria to the dank staircase that leads to the new Pink Locker “office.” But it was hard to stay focused. Our underground location didn’t help. I wished I could open my locker, open the funny alphabet combination lock, and return to our fancy offices behind the pink locker door. The bomb shelter basement was a major step down. Actually, it was thirteen dusty, creepy steps down.

  When I arrived for today’s meeting, Piper and Kate were already there. They were sitting around the makeshift desk we made out of massive packages of paper towels. The lighting was low budget—single lightbulbs with hanging pull strings. I was going to tell them about Forrest, but it was clear they already knew. Kate bounded up to me. “Did you hear? Did you hear?”

  “Hear what?” I said, playing dumb.

  “About Forrest? He’s a free man. He dumped Taylor.”

  “Yes, I guess I did hear something about it,” I said. And then I couldn’t take it anymore and I grabbed both of Kate’s hands and started jumping up and down with excitement, like I had just won a game-show grand prize.

  “Shh! We should get to work,” Piper interrupted. “You won’t believe how many questions came in overnight.”

  Get to work? Piper?

  Piper almost never wanted to work. She was queen of goofing off. But there she was, laptop open and humming, waiting for us like a teacher annoyed at her chitchatting class.

  “First question: ‘I am gaining weight, my boobs are growing, and my clothes don’t fit. I know everyone says this is normal. Some of my friends say they’re jealous, but I don’t like my new, bigger body. What do I do?’ ” Piper said.

  “I’ll take that one,” I said, even though it would be hard for me to identify with this fast-blooming girl. I am the slowest-blooming girl I know.

  “Hey, did we get any more of those weird e-mails?” Kate asked.

  “Define weird,” Piper said.

  I knew what Kate meant. After our first week running the new adult-free PLS, we had received a couple messages that said stuff like “Shut down the PLS, girls! It’s for your own good!”

  “Yeah, there was one, but I think someone’s just having fun with us,” Piper said. “They’re always signed ‘A Pink Friend.’ It’s probably Taylor Mayweather again.”

  That was so typical of Piper. Worrying was not her thing. But I, for one, was worried. And much as I didn’t like Taylor, I doubted it was her. She wouldn’t call us “girls” and she was far too dramatic to send in an anonymous message only three people would read. If Taylor was going to be mean, she wanted to be seen. I wondered if it was Edith, trying to get a message to us.

  “Second question,” said Piper. “ ‘My mom won’t let me shave my legs. What do I do?’ Third question: ‘I’m too shy to invite anyone to the Backward Dance. Can you help?’ ”

  Kate took those two and we moved on with business as usual. Piper took a question from someone—a boy (shocker!). This one was upset that he had been given an unkind nickname, Iron Mouth, after he got braces.

  I wasn’t sure Piper was the best person to get that one. She was always gifted with the cutest nicknames. In fact, Forrest gave her the latest one. It was “Peas”—the sweet little green vegetable. She’s Piper Pinsky, so it started out as “Ps,” as in two Ps. But then Piper said she didn’t want anyone to think her nickname was “P.P.,” like pee your pants, so Forrest changed it to Peas, like peas and carrots.

  Peas was a much cuter nickname than Buzzy. For that and other reasons, I was becoming fed up with Piper, and more than a little bit jealous. By the end of the meeting, I was steaming. Why did she ignore my Forrest celebration? Why didn’t she want me to be happy? When the bell rang, she quickly snapped the laptop closed and bounded up the staircase, not waiting for anyone. I tore after her and called her name, but in the noise of the crowded hallway, I guess she didn’t hear me.

  Five

  On Friday afternoons at two thirty, every class takes a break to watch Margaret Simon TV’s only show (besides the morning announcements in homeroom). You Bet! stars Bet Hirujadanpholdoi, who is my sorta friend. She’s from Thailand and is both shy and not shy. Meet her for the first time and she’ll hardly say a peep. But give her a reporter’s notebook and a microphone and she’s a tornado. Bet is actually in the PLS: She was invited in just like we were when school started. Being the new girl at school, she was sort of only half involved in the PLS, mostly because I didn’t really welcome her with open arms.

  But she floored me, and everyone else, when she investigated the PLS hacker, who turned out to be Taylor Mayweather. Has anyone ever heard of anything more rude? These girls wrote into us, putting their worries on display, and Taylor slammed them. Nice … real nice!

  Since Bet’s big exposé about Taylor, she’s done shows about how so many products are made in China and India, where working conditions are often poor. (She asked everyone to look at their sneakers and the labels inside their shirts, which proved her point.) She also convinced the whole school to start using reusable water bottles instead of buying one from the vending machine every time you’re thirsty. And she did another good deed today
when she covered what was on everyone’s mind—the Backward Dance.

  “Hey girls, before you ask a guy to the Backward Dance, consider its origin,” Bet told the camera, microphone in hand. As usual, she was wearing a conservative suit and a little smack of lipstick. Her hair was smoothed down anchorwoman-style.

  “The Backward Dance used to be called the Sadie Hawkins Dance,” she continued. “But who was Sadie Hawkins?” The camera zoomed in on an old comic strip, featuring hillbilly-looking people. “Ms. Hawkins was a cartoon strip character from the 1930s who was so unattractive, her father created Sadie Hawkins Day so she could finally get a husband.”

  I gave Kate a perplexed look. I had no idea. Does that make me a Sadie Hawkins if I chase Forrest?

  “That’s right. Sadie Hawkins Day was actually a race. If a single girl caught a guy, he would have to marry her.”

  “Watch out for the girls on the track team then,” Forrest’s friend Luke Zubin said.

  All the guys in class started laughing. The girls who had already asked guys to the dance looked a little concerned. Bet went on to interview a variety of people: An old-timer who remembered the Li’l Abner comic strip said the Sadie Hawkins tradition “was all in good fun.” Most students said they liked the Backward Dance. One girl said it had given her the courage to ask a boy who she’s always liked. But the interview with Ms. Russo, our kinda-out-there art teacher, was a downer.

  “The Sadie Hawkins Dance is a vestige from a long-ago time, when the cultural mores prevented women from having anything other than a subservient role in their dating lives.”

  Huh? As often with Ms. Russo, I needed a dictionary to translate what she said into plain English. Happily, Bet did the work for me.

  “What Ms. Russo is saying is ‘Should we continue a practice that sort of makes fun of women? Are we desperate for guys, and can we ask a boy to a dance only one time a year?’ ”

  But the class wasn’t in the mood for deep thinking.

  “Cancel the dance?” Clementine Caritas, my locker neighbor, asked in an impatient tone. “I already bought a cute straw hat to wear.”

  “My band is playing that dance. It’s our first gig,” Forrest said.

  “Duuuuude,” Luke said, annoyed as he looked over at Forrest. I was noticing how boys were starting to use dude to mean all sorts of things. It was almost like aloha to them.

  I glanced at Forrest, and he looked annoyed, too.

  “Pipe down,” Mr. Ford said.

  I was up in the air about what I wanted to do. On the one hand, I wanted the dance to happen if I could go with Forrest. And with his band performing, I obviously wouldn’t miss it. But on the other hand, I was a little too chicken to ask Forrest. Someone else might ask him before I gathered up enough courage. My bee-stung lip looked normal again, so maybe I should strike now?

  I debated all this in my head, back and forth, completely unaware that I was already too late.

  Six

  For a few weeks it was smooth sailing for the newly independent pinklockersociety.org. Piper handled all our technical issues and got us back online. We continued regular meetings in our new basement location. We answered at least one question every day, but we tried to do more. There were so many. No school officials had called us down to the office. Our parents didn’t seem to notice. We had heard nothing from Edith.

  Our recent questions covered everything from bra trouble to boy trouble, including a lot of questions related to the Backward Dance, which was now two weeks away. But variations on “When will I get my period?” continued to be the most popular question topic of all.

  Really, it was mind-blowing (and reassuring) to see how many middle-school girls obsess over their periods. Sure, some girls had already gotten theirs in late elementary school, but plenty of girls were in my boat—in eighth grade and still nothing. I was growing somewhat, though, in every department, if you know what I mean. I was no longer as worried about my own period situation. I could pass along my knowledge that it’s OK to bloom a little late. And people were so relieved to have their questions answered that they actually wrote us fan mail. Seriously!

  Tons of people wrote in to say thanks. One girl said, “A massive enormous thank you!” She signed her note “A Pink Thinker.” Other frequent visitors said stuff like “You guys rock!” “Keep it up!” and “Stay pink!” That’s why Kate and I were so shaken up when we got the next e-mail. It was totally mysterious, and whoever wrote it wasn’t looking for advice. She was giving us some.

  Dear PLS,

  Please cease operations now. I can’t keep warning you!

  Signed,

  A Pink Friend

  “I still think it’s a prank,” Piper said.

  “I guess it could be Taylor,” Kate said, but I could tell she didn’t mean it.

  “Nah, I doubt it,” I said. “Taylor told Bet she’d ‘been there, done that’—remember?”

  “Who would call themselves ‘A Pink Friend?’ Must be a girl, right?” Kate said.

  “Or it it could be a guy pretending to be a girl,” Piper said.

  “I think we need to shut down,” I said.

  That turned everyone’s heads.

  “Give up? Shut down again? Just like that?” Piper said.

  “Maybe I should ask my mom?” Kate asked. Her mom was a former Pinky and had given us some advice the first time around.

  “No way,” I said. “I want to stay out of trouble, not get our parents all involved again.”

  Kate and Piper didn’t want to take the safest possible route by shutting down. So we did what lots of people do when something scary happens. We ignored it.

  Seven

  “I’m actually going to the open house,” Piper told Bet.

  “What open house?” I asked, having just joined their conversation in the lobby before school.

  Piper looked uncomfortable.

  “Piper was just saying she was going to help her mom out at the McCanns’ open house on Sunday.”

  Of course. Mrs. Pinsky, the real estate agent, was the one selling Forrest’s house.

  “So the house really is for sale?” I asked.

  “That’s usually what a For Sale sign means,” Piper said.

  “True,” I said, “Well, can I come with you? I bet there will be good snacks.”

  Piper didn’t answer right away. When she did, she said something about having to work at the open house, to help her mom with brochures and tours and stuff.

  “Forrest won’t even be there,” Piper said abruptly.

  “Where are they moving? Does your mom know?”

  “My mom said it depends on some sort of job thing and if their house sells or not.”

  Real estate was so confusing.

  “But I can come to the open house, right? Anybody can come. It’s an open house.”

  “Yeah,” Piper said. “Anyone who’s looking to buy a house.”

  “It will be fun,” I said. “You can give me a tour. I’ll ride my bike over.”

  “OK, Jem. I guess so,” Piper said.

  My mind started buzzing with a plan. I would write Forrest a note and I could slip it into his room, into his backpack. No! Under his pillow!

  In this note, I could finally spell out my feelings and even ask him to the Backward Dance. It was finally time, especially now that Taylor was out of the picture.

  As soon as I got home from school, I started writing. I played a fair amount of trash-can basketball until I got it down in a way that didn’t make me cringe or collapse in a fit of giggles. Here’s what I wrote:

  Hey Ax-man,

  I hope you were not too startled to find this note in your room. Piper let me in during the open house. I hope you don’t move! It would be weird going to school without you. I mean, we’ve known each other a loooooog time. Remember Miss June in preschool and how she always wore a silly hat when she read books? Anyway, the reason I’m writing this is because I’m too shy to ask you to the Backward Dance in person. I know you’ll be bu
sy with the band, but I could help you set stuff up. I am very organized! Please let me know (yes or no) by next Friday.

  —Buzzy

  P.S. I hope you like the nickname I gave YOU. Do you get it?

  I had read the note over and over at home. Earlier versions went into more detail about the fact that I liked him. There was also a version where I said we could go just as friends. But in the end, I kept it simple.

  Mrs. Pinsky looked a little annoyed when I arrived on my bike for the open house. But then she said that any activity was better than none and that potential buyers would probably imagine I was the kid of someone looking at the house.

  “It’s all psychology in selling houses,” she said. “A house looks better if you know someone else is interested.”

  Piper was there, but her mom told her to get some glass cleaner and un-smudge the patio doors. I wandered the clean-smelling, neat-as-a-pin house alone. It looked tidier than it had the last time I was there, during the beesting incident. Few traces of the real family were left behind. No photos even. That, too, was part of the Pinsky approach.

  “A person has to be able to imagine him- or herself living in a place,” Mrs. P. said.

  Nervously, I padded around upstairs. I found Forrest’s room quickly. I knew where it was because we used to visit when I was younger. It made me chuckle that so little had changed. His room still had a locomotive train theme and even train sheets and pillows on the bed. What really made me laugh is when I saw a worn old teddy bear on his bed. So cute! I thought about sliding the note under his pillow but then thought that was too personal. I decided to place it on top of his pillow, and then I bolted from his room and down the steps.

  My heart was pounding as my feet hit the landing and then carried me out the front door. I knew I had a small window of time when I could run back in and take the note and forget this ever happened. I thought about it for a long moment. Then I hopped aboard my bike, yelling “Bye, Piper!” as I raced toward home.