I glared at Claire. I’d been doing battle with the drama queen for almost a year on Claire’s behalf, and now after I’d been hauled into the principal’s office, she’d decided that Madeline wasn’t so bad? “Yes, she is. She’s spoiled and prim, and no one will ever get the lead in a play as long as she’s around—and she’s fine with that.”
“You think she’s prim?” Claire asked, missing the important part of my last sentence too. “Man, this school has affected you if the word ‘prim’ is in your vocabulary now.”
Yeah, probably. The English teachers at Silver Creek were on a mission to teach us college-level vocab. “Prim fits her. She’s just so obviously rich and pretty, the type who doesn’t think anyone is good enough for her.” I stabbed more macaroni. “She only dates guys who are headed to Ivy League schools.” A group I would never belong to.
Claire studied me. “All those pranks you played on her ... is that because you secretly like her?”
“Did you listen to anything I just said?”
“It’s okay if you do,” Claire said. “She has her good points.”
Well, that was loyalty for you. Claire was probably hoping for a fun big sister and a rich stepfather. “Not enough good points to tempt me.”
When I finished eating, I did my homework. Every so often, my eyes strayed to the clock. At eight thirty, when Mom still hadn’t returned, I checked her phone’s location. It was in some residential area, unmoving. She’d said she’d gone out to eat. What was her phone doing there?
After a lot of finger-tapping on the table, I checked my contacts for Madeline’s phone number. I’d gotten it from Claire’s phone a while back. The cast of plays always sent out grouptexts, and I figured Madeline’s number might come in handy for a prank someday.
I hadn’t ever thought I’d use it to check on my mother. I went into my bedroom, slumped on my bed, and called Madeline.
She answered after a couple of rings. “Hello?”
“This is Cooper. Hey, do you know where our parents are?”
“Oh yes,” she said in a tight, unhappy voice. “They’re at my house, outside by the fire pit.”
Not good news. “What are they doing there?”
“As far as I can tell, they’re swapping embarrassing stories about their children. I’ve heard several about you already.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. No. “What?”
“We need to make a verbal contract.” She slipped into her lawyer tone. “I will never repeat any of the stories about you if you swear never to repeat any of the ones about me.”
“What stories did my mother tell you?”
“Do we have an agreement?” Madeline pressed.
I didn’t answer. She might be bluffing. Her father might only be telling stories about her.
She clicked her tongue. “One of yours involves getting locked out of your house in a pair of Spider-Man boxers.”
Nope, not bluffing. “Fine. We have an agreement. And I only wore those to sleep in because they were comfortable.”
“Right, Spidey. So there’s good news and bad news. The good news is our parents don’t seem to be upset with us anymore. When they first showed up, instead of giving me a stern lecture, my dad just asked how the painting went. Since then, he’s ignored me. They’re busy cooking s’mores.”
She didn’t add anything else.
“What’s the bad news?” I asked.
“The good news is also the bad news,” she said as though it were obvious. “They’re happily cooking s’mores together. You don’t just invite casual acquaintances to cook s’mores in your backyard.”
“Oh. I wasn’t aware that s’mores were the food of commitment.”
Madeline lowered her voice. “You need to have a talk with your mom. They’ve already made dinner plans on Wednesday, and she told my father he should take me to the football game on Friday. He said he thought that would be fun.Football, Cooper.”
“Yeah, I know what football is.”
“The point is she’s making a play for my dad. She needs to be stopped.”
