The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

Chapter Twelve Desperate times call for desperate measures

“Come again?” Alice cups a hand to her ear and leans towards Maya. “I know it couldn’t possibly be true, but I thought that I heard you say you’re going to hang out with the Geek Squad this afternoon instead of coming home with me.”

“Hello? Hello?” Maya calls into the pretend horn. “Is anybody there?”

Alice jumps back, laughing. “You don’t have to shout, Maya. I’m not deaf.”

“Are you sure?” asks Maya. “I mean, I did tell you Cody’s going to the Environmental Club meeting.”

“Uh huh.” Alice nods. “But you didn’t say anything about you going.”

“Well… duh…” says Maya. “I didn’t think I had to.” It’s not as if Maya’s been keeping how she feels about Cody a secret from Alice. “I thought that it was kind of glaringly self‑evident, you know?”

“You did?” Alice looks puzzled for a second, then slaps her forehead as though several very large (and possibly environmentally unfriendly) lights have just switched on inside it. “Oh, I know what must’ve confused me. It must’ve been the part where you said that you’d rather be buried in eels than go to one of those meetings again.”

Maya gives her an uncertain smile. “What do you mean, again?”

“I mean, again – you know, like, after last time? When the dreaded Clemens talked for about ten hours and you said that you figured the only thing the planet needed to be saved from was him? Because of all the hot air?”

“Are you sure?” Maya squidges up her face and squints, trying to remember. “We went to a meeting?”

“Uh huh. You made me go with you.”

“I did?”

“Uh huh. You fell asleep.”

“Well, I’m not going to fall asleep this time,” says Maya. “You’ll see. It’ll be totally different.”

“I’ll see?” Alice automatically takes a step backwards. “You’re right – it will be totally different. Because I’m not going with you.”

“What do you mean, you’re not going with me?” Maya certainly wasn’t planning on going alone. Alone among the geeks. “Why not?”

“Why not?” Alice’s is an expressive face, and right now what it’s expressing is indignant disbelief. “I’ll tell you why not. You may not remember all the way back to last Thursday, Maya, but I was the one who nearly got pneumonia because you thought it was a great idea to play Follow That Boy in a monsoon.”

“I said that I was sorry. Gott im Himmel, how was I supposed to know he wasn’t going home?”

“I was almost bitten by an insane dog.”

“You weren’t almost bitten. He was just barking to protect his house.”

“He came after us.”

“Alice, it was a dachshund, not the Hound of the Baskervilles.”

“And my shoes were totalled by the time I got home.”

“But nothing like that’s going to happen today. I’ll call my mom. She’ll come and get us.”

“No. If you ask me, hugging trees is even more humiliating than climbing them.”

“Please, Alice? It’s just one meeting. And then me and Cody will be friends and I’ll never ask another favour from you as long as I live.”

“No. I’d rather go over Niagara Falls on a surfboard.”

“Pleasepleaseplease!” Maya clasps her hands in supplication. “I don’t want to be all by myself with Clemens and the geeks.”

“You don’t have to be.” Alice nods behind her. “I bet that’s where they’re going. You can sit with them.”

Maya follows Alice’s gaze. She sees Joy Marie and Waneeda all the time, but she hardly ever looks at them. They don’t seem real to Maya – Joy Marie with her intense expression and nervous movements and Waneeda, slow and ungainly, shuffling beside her. They look like cartoon characters. A mouse and a bear. Joy Marie and Waneeda come to a stop at the stairs. A mouse and a bear who are bickering. Maya has gone to school with Joy Marie Lutz and Waneeda Huddlesfield her whole life, and yet she has probably never said a word to either of them. She probably wouldn’t even recognize their voices in the dark. Maya sighs. “Oh, goody.”