Read an Excerpt

1 

“It’s disgusting.” 

“It’s offensive.”

“It should not be allowed on school grounds!” 

“Our brains are still forming; we should not be in the presence of this kind of activity!” 

“There should be a rule against it.” 

“There should be a law against it!” 

Madison Paddington and I are in perfect agreement. There’s nothing ickier than two sixth graders acting like they’re in love. 

Across the lunchroom, Madison’s former-but-still-kinda friend Lisa Lee is tossing her hair back, giggling like a girly hyena at something Ronnie Cheseboro just said. Nothing can be that funny. Especially from Ronnie. He thinks burping is hilarious and hocking loogies is even better. 

“Are they calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend?” I ask Madison as I cut my meatloaf and pop a piece into my mouth. 

“No, Lisa Lee says they’re hanging out.” 

I chew and think about this. Now, I hang out all the time. Well, not all the time, but on the weekends, and after school when Dad lets me. Still, since I moved to Los Angeles from Ohio almost a year ago, most of my hanging out has been with Madison. And before her, I hung out with my used-to-be-but-not-really-anymore friend Samantha. 

That’s friendly hanging out, though. That’s not what Madison is talking about. She means boys. 

I don’t want to hang out like that anytime soon, especially if you have to laugh at burps and loogies or care about sports and video games. Yawn! 

Madison says that once you turn twelve you start thinking more about hanging out with boys, but she celebrated the big one-two before we were friends and she doesn’t care about boys yet . . . I don’t think. 

“You don’t care about boys now, do you?” I ask. 

“Ewww, no. At least not anybody at school. Why? Do you like somebody?” 

“No way!” I say. “I’m still eleven.” 

“Yeah, but you’re the only one here who has a love potion!” 

“Shhh!” I hiss at her. “The LP is not to be discussed on school grounds.” 

For someone who doesn’t care about boys, Madison is very interested in my love potion. I can’t blame her. It’s a cool thing to have, for sure. My uncle Arnie sent it to me as a gift when I performed in Healthyland, a play at school. Most kids get flowers or cards or gift cards to iTunes, but that’s not his way. He lives in New Orleans and has a head of big, frizzy hair like Albert Einstein and a cat called Fuzzer who looks exactly like him. The best explanation of Uncle Arnie is that he’s the kind of person who thinks a voodoo doll is a good birthday gift for an eleven-year-old. 

It wasn’t. 

Madison never totally believed that the voodoo doll worked, but she’s always bringing up my love potion. It’s part of the reason I think she must like a boy--maybe not here at Friendship Community School, but somewhere. 

She lowers her voice and leans in. “Has your uncle told you how it works yet?” 

I dunk some mashed potatoes into the lake of gravy in the middle. “Not yet.” 

Uncle Arnie’s note said “instructions to follow,” and I’ve been waiting for them ever since. It’s hard for me to wait for things; I like things to happen right now. But I’m in a class at school called Focus! that teaches us how to deal with things like being patient, and I guess it’s working, because I haven’t called or texted or emailed Uncle Arnie once to ask him about the love potion. More than twenty-one whole days, and I haven’t done a thing . . . except think and think and think about it, day and night, awake and in dreams, on school days and weekends, all the time! To tell the truth, I’m about to burst. 

“Darn,” Madison says. “It’d be fun to try on someone here at school.” 

Someone at school? That would be fun! “Who?” I ask. 

“I don’t know.” She looks around the lunchroom, and her eyes stop at her old table in front of the big window, the one she used to share with Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae. Kylie Mae is sitting down now too, giggling with Lonnie Cheseboro, Ronnie’s twin brother. Ickiness doubled! “Maybe Ronnie . . . or Lonnie.” 

“They don’t need a love potion. They’ve got Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae. They’re already in loooove.” I make my voice nice and sarcastic so Madison knows how I feel about it. 

“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be fun if one of them fell in love with Janet?” 

Ha! Janet teaches our phys ed class, but our school calls it Recreational Wellness, because they’re weird that way. I like the idea of Ronnie or Lonnie falling in love with Janet, but I have a better one. “How about the class ferret?” 

We watch as Ronnie wads up his brown paper lunch bag and tosses it, basketball-style, into a huge trash can a few feet away from him. The girls cheer as he and his brother high-five each other with loud smacks like they just won at the X Games. 

“He could fall in love with that trash can,” I suggest. 

Madison laughs. “A boy and his trash can. A love story for all time.” 

As we’re laughing, our friend Larry plops himself into the chair next to mine, his lunch tray clattering onto the table. Like he does every day, he opens the outside pocket of his backpack and pulls out Mono (“Rhymes with oh no,” he always says), a little wooden monkey sculpture about four inches high. It’s ridiculously adorable, with carved black-painted “fur” surrounding a mischievous face of “fur” painted white. He got it when his parents took him on a jungle adventure tour in Costa Rica for spring break, and now this monkey is always by his side. It’s part of what makes Larry Larry. 

“So, what’s the rating on the meatloaf?” he asks. “Edible, or time to call the health department?” 

I give it an A-minus. He takes a bite of his and agrees. 

As we’re talking, Samantha crosses the lunchroom and walks past us, holding a tray with the same lunch on it. I open my mouth to say something. Any words could work. Hey, the lunch is good today. You’re gonna like those potatoes. Want to sit with us? But nothing comes out. I’ve barely said anything to Sam since we fought over my voodoo doll. We talked after the play--I even gave her a hug--but the most conversation we’ve had since then is when we happen to be near each other and say, “Hey.” 

I want to be friends with Sam again, but I don’t even know where to start. How can you be friends with someone when she’s announced you’re no longer friends . . . and thrown pepperoni on you in the lunchroom . . . and chased you through a graveyard? 

I don’t have the answer to that, so all I do lately is say, “Hey.” And today I didn’t even do that. 

“So, what’s the hot topic at the lunch table today, ladies?” Larry asks. He never says something normal, like “What’s up?” 

Madison and I look at each other. We agreed to keep the love potion between us, so we scramble for a safer answer. 

“Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae,” I say. 

“And Ronnie and Lonnie Cheseboro,” Madison adds. “They’re hanging out, you know, like couples.” 

“Two girls talking about two other girls in love with two lame-o guys?” Larry says. “Snoresville! I expected a lot more out of you two. Art, literature, or at least the advantages of enjoying Friendship Community School lunch as a sandwich cookie.” 

Larry’s holding up two pieces of meatloaf with mashed potatoes in between. He lifts it to his mouth like a hamburger and takes a big bite. Then, with his mouth full, he adds, “Work on something better for lunch tomorrow, please.” 

We crack up and promise him we will.

2 

After school Yvonne the “au pair” picks us up and drives us to Madison’s house. Madison doesn’t have a nanny anymore; she has this blond college-age girl from Finland who’s more like a driver and tutor and general all-around helper. Dad said he’d like an au pair for his life too . . . until he found out they get paid. 

Pulling up to Madison’s house is like arriving at a castle. There’s no moat or drawbridge, but there’s a big gate that opens with the touch of a button, leading to a wide circular driveway. Most people--like me--would call it a mansion. Even a princess would dream of having a room like Madison’s, with its pink wallpaper and canopy bed, a little table with a mirror and chair, lots of open space, and no junk on the floor. My favorite part of her room is the big white sliding door that opens to a balcony with a patio overlooking her backyard. It’s as pretty as a city park out there, with shrubs and flowers and a perfectly cut lawn--not like my backyard, which is mostly dirt with patchy grass peppered with poop from my awesome Irish setter, Toby. Madison doesn’t have a dog, which is too bad because her parents would probably pay someone to do nothing but be a poop picker-upper. 

Standing on Madison’s balcony, I raise my hand and wave slowly, making a figure eight in the air. I’m like a queen looking over my kingdom and its subjects--though my only subject right now is a guy in a baseball cap skimming Madison’s sparkling blue pool. He waves back. 

Oh well, having one subject is enough for now, I guess. 

“Hey, I thought you were gonna help me with my art project!” Madison says, joining me on the balcony. Then she tosses something on the floor that makes a slurpy, sloshy sound. 

I look down. It’s a green bucket filled with lumpy white gloop. It looks like oatmeal someone ate that came up again, and I can tell just by looking at it that it’s cold and clammy and sticky and gross. 

“We’ve got to rip up newspaper into strips and dip them in that,” she tells me. 

I look down again. I don’t mind creepy and crawly or dirty and dusty, but this gloppy, gloopy concoction immediately makes me sick to my stomach. 

“You want me to put my hands in that?” I ask. “I seriously might barf.” 

I really might. 

Madison doesn’t believe me. “You? You don’t even mind a slimy millipede crawling on your arm!” 

That is true. Millie the millipede is my favorite pet. Well, my equal favorite with Toby, of course. “But Millie is cute!” I say in a voice dangerously close to a whine. “That”--I point to the glop--“is not cute.” 

“You said you’d help me,” says Madison. “I only just came up with this idea, and I’m behind. I can’t do it all alone.” 

“What are you making anyway?” I ask, trying to delay this a little longer. She runs back into her room and returns to the balcony with an oval made of chicken wire, about the size of a watermelon, partially covered with strips of newspaper. 

“What is it?” I ask. 

“It’s papier-mâché.” 

“I know that. But what is it?” 

“I’ll tell you later, when it’s further along,” she promises. With that, she plops herself on the tile patio, rips a piece of newspaper, and plunges it into the bucket. 

I watch her flatten the paper onto the chicken wire. “Well, I wish you’d picked something less disgusting,” I say. Our school’s art show--named the Immersive Interactive Art Installation (nothing is simple at Friendship Community School)--is coming up in two weeks, and the project I chose is simple and neat: storyboards. Storyboards are drawings that show a movie director how each scene is going to look--like a super-detailed graphic novel or comic book. We saw some in Madison’s dad’s office when we sneaked in to look at his People’s Choice Award. My movie is only in my imagination so far, but it will star my favorite character that I created: Pandaroo, an intergalactic bear who propels himself through space by farting rainbows. 

Madison places another piece of newspaper onto her chicken wire and pats it down neatly. She plunges both hands back into the bucket and lifts them up, white glop dripping disgustingly between her fingers. With a pretend evil laugh she asks, “So, are you going to help me . . . or do you want to be covered in this stuff?”

 I slowly stand up. “What I want to do is . . . get out of here!” I run off the patio into her bedroom, hoping my sneakers won’t smudge her ultra-shiny hardwood floors. I hide in the closet, which is the size of most people’s bedrooms . . . or living rooms . . . or houses. Madison’s T-shirts are color-coordinated, her jeans are neatly piled in individual cubbyholes, and every shoe is matched with its partner, lined up on shelves. It’s a long way from my bedroom, where T-shirts are shoved unfolded into a drawer and jeans are usually wadded up on the floor next to Toby. 

Even though nobody wears winter coats in Los Angeles, Madison’s closet has a whole row of them. It’s a great place to hide! I squeeze in between two puffy parkas. Their fur hoods tickle both sides of my face, and I try not to laugh as I wait for her to find me. 

But I find something first. 

Underneath a low-hanging rod filled with blouses are two . . . eyes. 

Human eyes. 

For a second I think they might belong to a real person. You never know at Madison’s house, with its housekeepers and pool cleaners and handymen around all the time. But why would any of them be silently chilling on the floor of her closet? 

“Hello?” I ask quietly. This can’t be a person, but I’m still cautious as I take a step forward. The eyes don’t move or blink or close. I take a deep breath, step closer, and push the blouses apart. 

Turns out it’s not one pair of eyes but a bunch of them. 

Leaning against the wall is a poster board collage, filled with photos from top to bottom, from left to right. They’re all pictures of the same boy in different sizes, some in black and white, but most in color. Sometimes in a baseball cap or a knit beanie, sometimes showing off a head of spiky blond hair. Smiling with glistening white teeth in some, serious in others. His eyes are blue . . . or green . . . or hazel . . . it’s hard to say, but one thing is for sure--they are the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. He is cuuuuuuute. This must be the boy Madison likes! Why would she be interested in one of the dopey doofuses at school when she’s known about this boy for who knows how long? 

“Cleo, where are you?” Madison’s voice sounds nearby.