“You what?” I didn’t know what was worse: the fact that my brother had seen my underwear, or the fact that he was probably on the verge ofbuyingunderwear for a senior girl whose boyfriend I’d inevitably be forced to physically restrain.
“Don’t worry,” Noah said quickly. “Your stuff didn’t give me any ideas.”
And now he was insulting my intimates. It was a miracle I’d let him live past childhood.
Noah wrinkled his forehead, completely unaware that I was plotting his death. “Whatareyou talking about?”
“The note.” I decided then and there that I didn’t want to learn any more of the many reasons that I should have been interrogating him. “The card in my locker.”
Noah continued with his blank look.
“The invitation from the Bod Squad,” I said, using the term he and his friends had adopted for the God Squad.
At the phraseBod Squad,Noah’s eyes lit up. Before he could get any unsavory ideas, I plowed on. “You know, the whole ‘come to our secret lair in room 117’ thing.”
Noah opened his mouth and then closed it again. “You’re joking about the secret lair thing, right?” he asked a few seconds later. “Because if they did have a secret lair, that would be really hot.”
“You didn’t send it?” I asked. Noah was many things, but he wasn’t a liar, or at least he wasn’t a good one.
“Pretend to be a bunch of cheerleaders?” Noah asked.
Why did I feel like I was giving him ideas? I looked down at my watch. “Go to class,” I said finally, not wanting him to be late for fifth period. “And stay away from my underwear.”
A second later, Noah was jackrabbiting toward his next class and I was walking slowly in the general direction of my own. Personally, I wasn’t in any hurry. It had gotten to the point where Mr. Corkin and I had an understanding: I hated his class, and he hated me. It was a give-and-take relationship, and because of that, I took my time walking down the hallway and stopped at my locker again, just for the heck of it. Who cared if it had been less than a minute since I’d visited my locker last? Who cared if the bell had just rung? Delaying the inevitable was an art, and I was an artist.
31-27-15.
My combination was an anagram of a six-digit prime number. The fact that I knew that should tell you a little bit about me.
I opened the locker, briefly wondered if there were any orange Tic-Tacs left inside, and then immediately stoppedthinking about freshening my breath. There, on top of a history book I hadn’t bothered to read, was another note.
Toby Klein—
You have been selected to attend a preliminary meeting with the Bayport High Cheerleading Squad! Congratulations. How does it feel?
Go Big Gold!
How in the world had they gotten another note into my locker so quicklyandwithout my noticing? Talk about strange.
This time, the invitation was written in purple gel pen, but when I held it up to the light, some letters were a shade darker than the others, like the note’s author had traced them over twice. I quickly scanned the letters, but this time, they didn’t spell anything.
“Miss Klein? Need I even ask if you have a hall pass?”
Our vice-principal didn’t hate me nearly as much as he probably should have given my complete and utter lack of school spirit and my slight tendency toward jock-directed violence, but he was still the vice-principal.
“’Fraid not,” I said, holding up my hall-passless hands to illustrate.
“What’s this?” Mr. Jacobson’s eyes widened at the sight of the little white notecard. “You got an invitation to the Spirit Squad’s information meeting?” he asked. “That’s quite an honor.”
And you wonder why I think this school’s messed up.
“Yeah.” I took in Mr. J’s encouraging smile. “Whatever.”
“Toby,” Mr. J said, and I could feel a lecture coming on. “It’s an honor to be selected. You should go.”
I hated to break it to him, but there was no way in Hades.
“Can’t,” I said, trying to soften the blow. “I’m late for Corkin’s class, and that means detention. Darn.”
