Best Friends And Drama Queens Part 3

Just Because Something Is Popular Doesn't Mean It's Good.

I was shocked. Shocked to hear that my Uncle Jay's girlfriend, Harmony, had broken-up with him, and that Uncle Jay, in his depression over this, couldn't go back to his apartment, where the break-up had occurred, because the sight of it made him too sad.

Instead, he had to lie on our couch in the TV room watching CNN and eating microwave popcorn.

*But who's going to feed w.a.n.g Ba?'

Those were the first words out of my mouth. It maybe wasn't the most sympathetic thing to say.

But when you have rescued a turtle from a Chinese food restaurant where it was facing certain death, and your uncle has promised to take care of it, you too would ask who was going to feed it upon learning that your uncle had decided to live on your couch instead.

*Don't worry about w.a.n.g Ba,' Uncle Jay said with a sigh. *My neighbour's promised to look in on him.'

*That's a relief,' I said.

Still. Uncle Jay did look terrible. He hadn't shaved in a while, and the goatee he'd been growing looked all crooked and awful.

It wasn't any wonder Harmony had broken up with him. He looked like something that had crawled out of the woods. And not in a cute, cuddly way.

*Kids,' Mom said, *leave Uncle Jay alone. Come into the kitchen and have some soup. You can make yourselves some ham and cheese Hot Pockets too.'

Ham and cheese Hot Pockets happen to be one of my favourites, so I was very torn by this, of course. On the one hand I really wanted to eat. But on the other hand, I also really wanted to hear about Uncle Jay and his girlfriend.

So, it turned out, did Sophie.

*Harmony broke up with you?' Sophie cried. I forgot Sophie had met Uncle Jay's girlfriend when the two of them had babysat for us while my mom and dad had gone to a party given by some people in my mom's office, and Sophie had been at my house for a sleepover during Winter Break.

*She said it's clear we want different things out of life,' Uncle Jay explained. *She said she wants a career, family and home owners.h.i.+p, while it's obvious all I want to do is be a perpetual student for the rest of my life. Which is true, but I don't see what's wrong with a thirst for knowledge. She also said it's clear from my refusal to find a job that I lack commitment. But I said, why should I, an artist, toil like the common man, and possibly lose my artistic soul?'

*Jay!' Mom yelled from the kitchen. *This is not an appropriate conversation to be having with nine-year-olds. Kids! Get in here! Your soup is getting cold.'

*Uncle Jay,' Kevin said, *if you die, can I have your futon couch?'

*Why do you want my futon?' Uncle Jay asked.

*So when people come upstairs to my room,' Kevin said, *I can tell them, "Have a seat on my futon couch."'

*You can have my futon couch,' Uncle Jay said sadly, staring at the TV.

*I'm going to get a different cover for it though,' Kevin whispered to me as we were going back into the kitchen. *Uncle Jay's futon cover is boring and ugly. It's just brown. I'm going to get a purple one. In velvet.'

*You're horrible,' I told Kevin. *How can you think about yourself at a time like this? And besides, Uncle Jay isn't going to die.'

Kevin said, *He will if all he eats is popcorn.'

We all agreed it was hard to concentrate on eating lunch when in the other room there was a man possibly dying of a broken heart. I knew how much Uncle Jay loved Harmony, and that was a lot. Harmony was studying to be a television news reporter, and she was very beautiful, with long black hair, and delicate hands that fluttered around when she talked. She always seemed to know the right thing to say. One time she had written a story about me that had gotten into our town newspaper and made me a temporary celebrity.

*Your uncle should just say he's sorry,' Erica said as we ate our Hot Pockets and drank our soup. *Then Harmony will forgive him and they can get married.'

*But he can't say he's sorry if he isn't really sorry,' Caroline pointed out. *And if he doesn't plan on changing. That would be a lie. And Harmony would notice if he didn't get a job.'

*It's so sad,' Sophie said with a sigh. *I can't eat, I'm so torn up about it. I've never seen a man in so much pain.'

*Let's go film Mewsie before we go back to school,' Rosemary said. Rosemary took a more practical view of things. And she was right. We couldn't do Dance Party America anyway, since Uncle Jay was hogging the TV. Besides, when we peeked in on him after rinsing our soup bowls and putting them in the dishwasher, he was snoring, the moustache of his goatee moving back and forth in the air with his breath. There were popcorn kernels in it.

*Ew,' Sophie said.

We spent so much time filming, petting and brus.h.i.+ng Mewsie a" he's a long-haired kitten, and so needs a lot of grooming, because his little tongue isn't big enough yet to comb through all his long, silky grey, white and black striped fur a" that we barely got back to the playground in time for the end of lunch recess.

But when we did, we saw an extraordinary sight.

And that was Cheyenne, the new girl, leading a number of the girls from Room 209 and even some from Mrs Danielson's fourth-grade cla.s.s next door in a brand-new game.

At first we couldn't figure out what the game was. It just seemed to involve a lot of girls running from one end of the playground to the other. It took us a little while to see that running in front of the girls was one solitary boy, who kept trying to duck behind other groups of kids in an attempt to hide from the girls.

This didn't seem to work, however, since the other groups of kids would get out of the way as soon as they saw the stampede of girls thundering towards them.

I didn't blame them. I'd get out of the way too.

It took another few seconds for us to recognize the ident.i.ty of the boy who was running from the herd of girls.

*Um,' Caroline said, after a minute, *Isn't that Prince Peter?'

Just at that moment my brother Mark strolled past us, holding the kickball from the game he'd been playing over on the baseball diamond, which had been disrupted when the girls had ripped through it. Mark was shaking his head in disgust.

*Who's that boy?' I grabbed Mark's arm and pointed. *What are they doing to him?'

*That's Peter Jacobs.' Mark looked surprised that I was speaking to him. We have a policy of not acknowledging one another's presence in the playground. It's one of my rules.

*What?' All the colour drained from Sophie's face. Sophie is actually a very good actress. Sometimes when we play queens and we make out like Sophie gets the news that the evil warlord has decapitated Prince Peter, Sophie pretends to faint, and she does an excellent job of it. She can make her body completely rubbery.

But you could tell she wasn't acting now. She really did look like she was about to faint. I hurried to stand behind her so I could catch her if she fell over.

*Oh yeah,' Mark said, as we watched Peter finally bust his way out from amidst the girls, yelling, Get away from me! *That new girl started it. The one from Canada. It's called the Kissing Game. She says everybody plays it, back where she comes from.' Seeing that we were looking at him blankly, Mark elaborated. *Basically, the girls pick a boy and then they chase after him until they catch him. And then the new girl tries to kiss him.'

*I need to sit down,' Sophie said after a minute, looking like she really might faint after all.

*I know,' Mark said, nodding. He didn't understand what she meant. He didn't know about Sophie's crush on Peter. *It makes me want to throw up too. Pete's our best pitcher.'

Rosemary nodded, agreeing with him. She didn't know about Sophie's crush on Prince Peter either. *Those girls are insane. Have they no dignity?'

*Seriously,' Sophie said faintly. *I need to sit down like now.'

We left Mark and Rosemary commiserating about the ruined kickball game and helped Sophie hobble towards the steps to the front of the school. Pine Heights Elementary is so old-fas.h.i.+oned that there are entrances with stone carved signs over them, one marked Boys, one marked Girls, but no one obeys what they say any more. We sat Sophie down in front of the sign marked Boys and encouraged her to stick her head between her knees, because I saw a paramedic tell a lady to do that on a TV show once. Sophie did it, but I could hear her crying a little. We were patting her on the back and telling her not to worry when I heard a familiar click-clack on the pavement and I looked up to see Mrs Hunter looking down at us with concern on her pretty, rosy-cheeked face.

*Girls,' Mrs Hunter said, *is everything all right?'

*Oh, everything's just fine, Mrs Hunter,' Erica said quickly. We knew Sophie would sooner die than let Mrs Hunter know about her inner pain. *Sophie, um . . . her, um . . .'

*Her broken toe just hurts,' Caroline said.

I was glad Caroline was such a quick thinker. I wouldn't have been able to think of something that fast. I was still remembering how Prince Peter's face had looked as all those girls had caught up with him. He'd seemed totally panicked.

*Oh dear,' Mrs Hunter said. *Well, why don't you three go up the stairs now, ahead of everyone else, so Sophie gets a bit of a head start? That way she won't get crushed when the rest of us go up. Would that be all right, Sophie?'

Sophie lifted her tear-stained face and nodded, unable to speak in her grief.

*Th-thanks,' was all she was able to get out.

Mrs Hunter smiled again and went away. We got Sophie to her feet and started taking her inside.

*The thing is,' Sophie finally managed to burst out, when we were inside helping her up the stairs, and the warm air from the old-timey radiators was melting our frozen cheeks, *she knows. She knows how I feel about him. Because Caroline told her. She's doing it on purpose.'

*Who knows?' Erica asked in bewilderment.

*The new girl,' Sophie said. *That Cheyenne girl. She knows I love Peter.'

*Oh, Sophie,' Caroline said, just as Erica said, *I'm sure she didn't do it on purpose.'

But I agreed with Sophie. I was sure she did do it on purpose. The thing was, I had had some experience with girls like Cheyenne. I hoped I was wrong.

But I didn't think so.

And a few minutes later, when we'd gotten Sophie into her seat, and the bell rang and the rest of our cla.s.s hurried back into the room, I heard enough to confirm that I was right a" at least as far as I was concerned.

*Oh my gosh, that was so fun,' Dominique was saying as she hung up her coat.

*I know,' Marianne was gus.h.i.+ng. *I've never had that much fun at recess before.'

*That's the best game ever,' Shamira agreed. *Who are you going to kiss at afternoon recess, Cheyenne?'

Cheyenne fluffed out her curly hair and looked around Room 209. Her gaze fell on Stuart Maxwell, innocently returning to his desk besides mine.

*Him,' she said simply.

*Oh, excellent,' Rosie Myers said, clapping her hands. *He'll be easy to spot, because of his red hair.'

*Unless he's wearing a hat,' Elizabeth said.

I couldn't believe it! Even shy Elizabeth Pukowski, who never said anything to anyone (or at least, never to me), was in on the Kissing Game! How had this happened? And in just the short time between when we left for lunch and when we came back! How could we have gone from feeling sorry for Cheyenne to her ruling the school (well, practically)?

And how had the Kissing Game gotten so popular? Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good. That's a rule. There were many examples of things that weren't good being popular, such as high-heeled zip-up boots. They could turn your ankle (at least according to my mom).

Also McDonald's. McDonald's tastes good, and of course everyone loves it, but if you eat it every day like I want to, you could have a heart attack and die.

And what about racing cars? Racing cars are very, very popular, but one of the reasons people like watching them is to see them crash. The problem is, when racing cars crash, the people driving them can get hurt. This is exciting for the people watching, but sometimes not so good for the people driving them.

These are just a few examples of popular things that aren't good for you. But of course there are many, many more.

It was amazing to me that Marianne, Dominique, Shamira, Rosie and Elizabeth couldn't see that Cheyenne's game wasn't any good, even though it might seem that way, like high-heeled zip-up boots, McDonald's, and racing car driving. Any game that came from Canada might seem exciting and exotic.

But couldn't they see it had already made Sophie cry?

Well, maybe not.

Still, you would think they would have noticed how mad it had made Prince Peter. He hadn't looked too happy when he'd stalked away from that group of girls he'd been swallowed into earlier. He hadn't looked like he'd liked any of them a" especially Cheyenne a" too much. If getting boys to like them was the goal, why were they all doing something that just made boys hate them?

It didn't make any sense, if you asked me.

But then, no one had asked me.

I went to sit down next to Stuart, who wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention and had no idea what was about to befall him in one hour and twenty minutes, at afternoon recess. I thought that maybe, just to be fair, I should warn him.

I was kind of confused though. I was a girl, not a boy. Should I be on the girls' side, or the boys'?

I decided that, since I was a friend of Sophie's, I'd be on the boys' side.

*Ahem,' I said to Stuart.

*What?' Stuart demanded. *I already said your zombie drawing was the grossest. Leave me alone.'

*No,' I said. *That's not it.' How was I going to explain to him that at recess a whole lot of girls were going to chase him and then trap him into letting Cheyenne kiss him? Maybe he wouldn't mind this. I didn't know. Maybe I should just mind my own business.

*Then what?' Stuart wanted to know. *I'm not doing anything to you, Finkle. Just Stinkle off.'

Well! So much for trying to do a person a favour! Let him get kissed by every girl in the entire fourth grade! See how he liked it!

*Fine,' I said. *Don't I say I didn't warn you then.'

*Warn me about what?' Stuart asked suspiciously.

*You'll find out,' I said. *When it's too late.'

On the other side of me, Joey was looking all around.

*Hey,' he said. *Why are all the girls whispering together?'

*Not all of them,' I said. *I'm not. Rosemary's not. Sophie and Caroline and Erica aren't. So your statement is not very accurate.'

*You guys aren't girls,' Joey said. *Well, not real girls.'

I gave him a very dirty look. Now I felt less like helping those boys than ever. I had only been sitting next to them for less than one day, and already I wasn't a real girl? And neither were my friends?

*Well, you know what I mean,' Joey said, looking a little bit sorry. But just a little bit. Then, because I just kept looking at him, he went, *Ruff!' I noticed he always started barking when he was nervous.