The Cupcake Queen (7 page)

Tally rolls her eyes, making Poppy laugh again.

“I am always up for a walk on the beach,” Blake says. I nod, feeling a little flutter in my stomach.
Quiet,
I tell it. I can’t be all fluttery over some boy I’ve only just met.

We head out, pulling on jackets and sweatshirts against the mist that the rain left behind. We walk along in silence for a while. Tally seems lost in thought and Blake is munching on the two cookies he swiped before heading out the door. We step over a long swath of seaweed and pass a cluster of seagulls that seem overly territorial when we get too close to their pile of rocks.

“Listen,” Tally says, stopping and taking my arm. “Do you trust me?”

“I, uh . . .” I’m not sure how to answer her question. Luckily Blake does.

“Tal, she just met you. All she knows about you is that you committed some sort of crime serious enough to get you banned from a wholesome community event, and you are obsessed with items you can find in office supply stores or here on the beach.”

“You can’t find scissors on the beach.”

“You know what I mean,” Blake says.

“Okay,” Tally says, turning back to me. “I’ll rephrase. Do you trust me enough to let me spearhead your revenge on Charity?”

I hadn’t really been thinking revenge. More like truce.

It’s as if Tally can read my thoughts. “You can’t just let them get away with it,” she says.

I look at Blake, and he shrugs, leaving it up to me.

“Okay,” I say. “What’s your plan?”

“The fewer people who know about it, the better,” she says. I wait, but she doesn’t say anything else. I almost ask again, but then I think about Tally’s question: Do I trust her? And I decide I do, because that’s what trust is—a decision.

“Can we get a hint?” Blake asks.

“Let’s just say that when it’s over, Charity will have suffered a blow and she will have no one to blame but herself.”

“Sweet,” Blake says. “What can we do?” Again there’s that word
we
I’ve come to like so much.

“I am going to need a little petty cash,” she says.

I think of the seventy-five dollars I have stuffed into my Tootsie Roll bank. “Done,” I say.

She smiles. “Okay, then.” She turns and walks quickly down the beach. As Blake and I follow behind, Blake tells me who owns each house we pass. He seems to have a story about every family.

“Do you know everyone in Hog’s Hollow?” I say.

He shrugs and bites into his last cookie. “I’ve lived here all my life,” he says. “In small towns, knowing things about other people is like breathing. You can’t help it, even if you wanted to.” We walk a little farther, stepping across another big piece of seaweed that was dragged up in the last storm. “That’s the Cathance place.” I look up at a house with purple pansies spilling off the back porch. “He’s a botanist,” he says. “Orchids mostly,” he says. “He’s trying to create a new kind. He wrote out a whole explanation for me if you want to read it.”

“You never know when you’re going to need detailed orchid information,” I say, making Blake smile.

Another house comes into view, but this one is closed up, its back door boarded over. We keep walking and I wait for the story, but Blake is quiet.

“How about that one?” I ask.

“The Fishes,” he says.

“As in Mr. Fish?” I ask.

He nods. Tally has stopped and is looking out over the water. We stop and stand with her.

“Why is it all boarded up?” I ask.

“About a year and a half ago, there was an accident.” Blake nods toward the distant islands. “Out there.” Blake looks back at me. “It was pretty bad.”

“An accident?” I ask.

“His wife went out by herself in a kayak. A freak storm hit. The divers from the state police were all over the bay, searching. They finally found parts of the boat and then they found her.” Blake looks back out at the water. “Like I said, it was pretty bad.” I nod, not knowing what to say.

Tally picks up the story. “Mr. Fish kind of went nuts. He used to just walk the beach. Up and down, for hours.” She looks over at me. “Poppy used to come out with food for him. On nights when I couldn’t sleep, I’d go out on the porch and he’d still be out there. Just walking.” Tally kicks a piece of drift-wood, scaring some seagulls that were cracking mussels against the rocks. “Sometimes I would see his son out here with him, all bundled up against the cold. Then one day, they were gone. They just boarded up the house and moved into town.”

“That was the last time Mr. Fish has ever set foot on the beach,” Blake says. He picks up half of a mussel shell and throws it into the water. It floats for a moment, like a tiny boat, until a wave hits it and it disappears.

“So, he’s better now?” I ask.

“Define
better
,” Tally says, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes.

That’s a tough one. I’m not sure I can. Luckily Tally lets me off the hook. “Now he spends most of his time out in the woods.” She waves her hand toward the hills above town.

“Doing what?” I ask.

“Some kind of project,” she says. “There are all kinds of theories—”

“Like I was saying about small towns . . .” interjects Blake.

“—but no one knows for sure.” Tally talks over him.

“What happened to Mr. Fish’s son?” I ask.

“He’s around.” Tally pauses, looking up at a gull circling above us. “Sort of. For a while it seemed like he was out of school more than he was in it. He was always ditching and taking off. He started volunteering at the ARK around the time I did, some sort of community service thing to keep him from getting suspended.” Tally shades her eyes against the sun that’s just peeking through the clouds. “That’s where he got his dog,” she says. “Since then, he seems better. Happier.”

“The dog?” I ask, feeling the flip-flop. I tell it to hush. There are a bazillion dogs in the world.

“He is awesome,” Tally says. Blake looks at her, making her smile. “I meant the dog!”

“Uh-huh,” Blake says. “I see how all you girls are around that guy.” Blake makes his voice go all high. “Ohhh, he’s sooo cute.”

Tally punches him lightly in the arm. “He’s got nothing on you, Pineapple Head.” Blake starts blushing like crazy. Tally turns to me. “However, Marcus
is
cute. Messed up, but cute. You’ve probably seen him. Just before dark, running on the beach. Just him and his dog, Sam.”

chapter eight

Just in case you don’t know, you should never, ever say the following: “Well, I guess it can’t get any worse.” Because here’s the lesson that I learned today: it can.

I’m sitting in art, spreading gesso over my canvas. Miss Beans is going around the room, watching. She’s different from the art teachers I had in the City. There it was all art theory and “finding your inner muse.” Miss Beans is all about technique. “Art, like anything else, requires practice,” she says. I’m trying to paint in long, smooth strokes, so you can’t see my brush marks, but it’s hard. I keep overlapping the last pass and leaving these little ridges.

The door opens and there he is again, but this time I know his name: Marcus. He has to pass right by where I’m sitting to get to the teacher.
Ignore him.
My brain is trying to stay on task, but my hand seems to have a mind of its own. My next pass is so wiggly that it looks like a wave is breaking right in the middle of my canvas. I peek at the front of the room, where Marcus is handing an envelope to Miss Beans. I will him to look my way, but he doesn’t. He waits while Miss Beans writes something on a piece of paper then folds it and gives it back to him. He turns, making me duck.
Calm down.
My next pass of the brush is even worse. The pileup of gesso is starting to look more mountain range-ish and less wave-ish. I keep my head down as Marcus walks toward me. He slows as he gets close. His hand hovers over the corner of my desk and then he’s past and out the door before I can register what’s happened. The grape Jolly Rancher sitting on my desk is the only evidence that he was here. I fold my hand over the candy and pull it into my lap before anyone can see.

“Miss Beans.” I glance up to see one of the girls at the back table, one of the Lindseys (yes, there are three of them), waving her hand. She asks something about her canvas. Charity gets up and starts making her way across the room. I look back down at my work.
If I mind my own business, they’ll leave me alone.
I try to brush out the ridges by going across them as Miss Beans showed us. I start on another ridge, happy that I’m finally starting to figure out something.

That feeling lasts about seven seconds.

I hear it first, then feel it. The tub of gesso that I’m using is upended on my table and the paint slowly spills into my lap. Charity stands in front of me, watching, waiting to see what I’ll do. What I do is just sit there. She smiles slightly and continues toward the supply closet.

“Oh, Pen Knee,” one of the Lindseys says from the back table. “What happened?”

Miss Beans turns and looks at me, first at my face and then at the pool of gesso spreading under my feet. I stand up, watching it roll down my legs. Unfortunately, Tally is in the library picking up some art books for Miss Beans, so I’m alone in my soggy mess. Miss Beans walks over and hands me a stack of paper towels, which I use to try to mop up the front of my jeans. Charity is standing by the supply closet, smirking. I feel the heat behind my eyes. I have to blink fast to make the tears stay inside. The only thing worse than their seeing me with paint all over is their seeing me cry about it.

“Start cleaning up, class,” Miss Beans says. She watches the back table as they put tops on their tubs of paint and stack their canvases on the drying rack. I keep wiping my chair and then the floor—anything to keep my face hidden. I know my eyes are red. I’ve always admired girls who can cry prettily, all shiny eyes and flushed cheeks. With me it looks like I have just had a terrible reaction to a bee sting. My eyes get all red and puffy and my nose starts running like mad.

The bell rings and everyone heads out for lunch. I hear a burst of laughter from the Lindseys and their leader once they hit the hall.

Miss Beans walks over to me and I concentrate on her paint-splattered clogs. “Want to tell me what happened?” I shake my head and stand up. “Come on into my office,” she says. I follow her, trying to ignore the squishing in my sneakers.

She stops at her desk and looks at me for a moment before leaning down to pull out a cardboard box. Inside is a big mound of clothes. “Take whatever you want,” she says. “I’ve learned to expect accidents in art class.” The way she says “accidents” lets me know that she knows it wasn’t really an accident. She leaves the office and closes the door behind her so I can get changed. I peel my still damp jeans off my legs and try to wipe away the goo that seeped through them. I just want to be away from here. I want to be back in my old life, where no one dumped paint on me and where the best thing going isn’t some Hog festival and where people like Charity and the Lindseys would be eaten for lunch.

“Is Penny still here?” I recognize Tally’s voice out in the classroom.

“She’s just getting changed,” Miss Beans says.

I rifle through the box until I find a pair of jeans that might work. They’re too big, but I find a scarf and slip it through the belt loops. I stuff my socks and jeans into a plastic bag I find in another box under Miss Beans’s desk. I have to pull my still damp shoes on, but at least my legs are mostly dry. I blow my nose and blot at my eyes, trying to catch the blue mascara before it streaks my face.

“Nice,” Tally says as I open the door. “Very bohemian.”

I smile slightly and walk to my table. I keep my head down, trying to make my hair hide my face. I pick up a paper towel and bend to wipe the gesso that splashed up the legs of my chair, but Miss Beans stops me.

“Go have lunch, Penny,” she says. “I’ll get it.”

“Thanks,” I say, picking up my notebook. Tally and I walk over to my new locker. After the penny incident, I asked to switch. I pull out my lunch. The idea of eating nauseates me, but I feel like if I don’t do the next thing, I’m going to really start crying or screaming or something.

“Let’s go where we can talk,” Tally says. Instead of going to the front lawn like most everyone else, Tally leads me to the wall outside of the library.

“Tell me,” Tally says. I just shake my head. “Charity?” she asks, and I nod. She sighs and looks away.

“I hate it here,” I say. Tally looks down at her sandwich. “I just want to be away from here, from all of—” I pause and look at my hands. What I’m saying must hurt Tally’s feelings some, but I can’t stop. “I just want to go home,” I say, and this last bit makes me start crying again because I realize I don’t really have one anymore. Tally hands me a paper towel from her lunch bag and I blow my nose hard. When I do, it makes a honking sound. “I’m a mess,” I say.

“A little.”

“A lot.” I blow my nose again, making sure there’s no honk this time. “It just stinks, you know?”

Tally looks past me for a moment. “I know,” she says, and something about the way she says it makes it seem like she does. She reaches into her lunch sack and pulls out a Ziploc of gummy cherries and hands it to me. “They’ll make you feel better,” she says. I bite the stem off of one. “Better?” she asks.

“A little. Thanks.”

Tally smiles her lopsided smile. “I told Blake about your mom being on the wall at the bank. Remember how he says he knows everything about this place?”

I just nod, chewing the rest of the gummy.

“Well, his mom told him something about your mom. Turns out she beat Charity’s mom for the title of Hog Queen not just that one year, but all four years they were in high school.”

I keep chewing the gummy until it doesn’t taste like much of anything anymore.

“What I’m trying to tell you is that it’s not just what happened at Charity’s party.”