Nerd Girls Read online

  “Not real animals! Family animals. Brothers and sisters and mothers and things.” I could tell they didn’t fully understand. “Just don’t interact with anyone, okay?”

  “But why?” asked Beanpole. “At my house my mother always makes pumpkin bread shaped into the first initials of my guest’s last names and serves them with ginger tea when I have people come over.”

  “And when was the last time you had people who actually wanted to come over, Beanpole?” I asked.

  “First grade,” she answered.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Look, just trust me on this.”

  I opened the door. The two girls behind me bonded.

  “You know, pumpkin rind causes my arm hair to fall out.”

  “Right or left arm?”

  “Both. On Halloween, I have to wear a wet suit just to go trick-or-treat.”

  “Wow,” replied Beanpole. “Do you get a lot of candy?”

  “I shouldn’t really eat candy,” answered Q. “I’m the kind of kid who likes it when people give out pencils.”

  “I like pencils too. Hey, Maureen,” asked Beanpole, “do you like it when the houses give out pencils for Halloween?”

  I stood there for a moment as the question hung in the air.

  “Do I look like the kind of girl that likes it when people give me pencils when I trick-or-treat?”

  They didn’t answer. We entered.

  “Aw, Boo, you brought some friends over,” my mom said, with a smile that was a mile wide when she saw the three of us come inside. Oh no, here we go, I thought. “You should have told me you were bringing friends,” Mom said.

  “They’re not my friends, Mom,” I answered. “They’re peers. From school. We’re…” I had to think of something, but something that wasn’t the truth. “We’re working on a project together. Gotta get started. Time is short.”

  “Well,” said my mom in her never-be-defeated-by-a-negativethought type of way, “maybe your ‘peers’ would like some cookies?”

  “Don’t bother, Mom. This one,” I replied, pointing at the Beanpole, “doesn’t eat things that aren’t geometrically designed by a licensed architect, and that one only drinks stuff like non-wet water.”

  My mom looked confused. No time to explain. I had to get them into my room before Marty or Ashley showed their ugly faces.

  “Okay, peers ... upstairs.”

  I pointed upward. Q and Beanpole started to walk.

  “I’ll send something up anyway,” said my mom in a cheery tone. “You never know.”

  “Don’t bother, Mom.”

  “Don’t be silly, Boo.”

  Whatever, I thought.

  “Wow, look at all these trophies,” said Beanpole as we climbed to the top of the stairs. “Which ones are yours?”

  I shot her an evil look. My brother, Marty, was some kind of inventor who won science fairs and stuff like that. My sister, Ashley, was a gymnast. A really good one. For some reason, God had decided to give all of my athletic ability to Ashley and all of my creative ability to Marty. Not a trophy in our house had been won by me.

  Actually, there was one. Once at summer camp I had tied for third place in an archery contest. They didn’t give me an actual trophy though, just a ribbon. But Mom put it on the Saunders Hall of Fame mantel anyway.

  Oh the envy that must have been felt by every parent who had ever visited our home. I, middle child Maureen, was the third-best eleven-year-old archer out of seventeen kids at Camp No-One-Gives-a-Poop.

  Really, who could compete with that?

  I threw open the door to my room.

  “Out!” I said.

  “I’m allowed to use the computer too! It’s for both of us.”

  “Out! Or I’ll smash your face like a walnut.”

  “I’m telling Mom,” whined Ashley.

  “G’head,” I snapped back. “And write your congressman too. Now out!”

  Ashley shot me a look of sisterly hatred and then started making her way to the door.

  “Hi,” said Beanpole Barbara in a perky voice as they met by the door. “I see you’re a junior Olympian gymnast. That music they play must really inspire you.”

  “What music?” snipped Ashley.

  “You know, the Olympic music.” Then she started to hum the Olympic theme song. “Dummm—dummm da-dummm-da dummm dumm. Dumm dummm dumm dumm-da dumm-da dumm dumm.”

  All of it. She was humming the whole darn concerto.

  “Dumm dummm dumm dumm-da dumm-da dumm dumm. da-dummm-da dummm dumm. Dumm dummm dumm dumm-da dumm-da dumm dumm.”

  Ashley wrinkled her forehead and glanced at Allergy Alice with a look of disbelief, as if she were saying, “Can you believe this dork?”

  Q smiled, then lifted her scuba tank.

  Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh.

  Ashley bolted for the stairs.

  “Ma-homm,” she screamed, as she ran for the kitchen. “Maureen brought freaks into the house.”

  I looked at my two peers.

  “Didn’t I tell you not to interact with anybody?” I said. “Didn’t I?”

  They each looked at me, confused. I closed the bedroom door.

  “Never mind. Let’s just lay it all out on the table. What kind of talents do you have?”

  We sat on the floor and made a little circle.

  “Well, I can swab my ears with a Q-tip.”

  It took all the strength I had not to reach over and strangle her. “We already covered that, Beanpole!”

  “Oh…yeah,” she said. Then, after a moment she added, “Well, I think we should reconsider.”

  “Reconsider?” I said. “Why would we reconsider? I mean, this is exactly why the two of you don’t have any…”

  I stopped.

  “Okay…I’m listening,” I said, trying to be patient. “Why I’m listening, I don’t know. But I am. G’head. Why should we reconsider?”

  Suddenly, Beanpole sprang to life.

  “Well, what if...what if...wait...What if I didn’t swab my ears with a Q-tip. What if I swabbed YOUR ears with a Q-tip?”

  “Using your toe?” I asked for clarification.

  “Of course, using my toe. I mean, how stupid would that be for me to swab your ears with a Q-tip if I were just using my hands?”

  “So, let me get this straight,” I said, on the verge of blowing a blood vessel. “Are you saying it would not be stupid to have an audience full of people watch you clean out my earwax with your toe?”

  “I’m saying it would show talent.”

  I turned to Allergy Alice. “Do you have anything at all to contribute to this conversation?”

  She paused. “You’re”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh—“funny.”

  “I’m gonna kill myself. Really, I should just end the pain now.” I stood up. “Tell me, Q,” I said in a fit of desperation, “does slurping off of that thing give you any kind of superpowers?”

  “Superpowers?”

  “Yeah, like can it help you to leap over tall buildings or fly through the air, or, I don’t know, help clean eye boogers from your friend’s pupils?”

  “Earwax,” said Beanpole, for clarification. “I clean earwax. I am not sure I’d trust my toes working around your eyes.”

  “So making me deaf is fine,” I said, “but making me blind presents a problem for you?”

  “What?”

  “I said, so making me deaf is fine, but making me blind presents a problem for you.”

  “What?”

  “I said...”

  “What, I can’t hear you,” said Beanpole. “I’m deaf. Get it. I’m deaf? Ha-ha!”

  I wasn’t going to last much longer. “Okay, I’m going downstairs to look through the garage. Maybe we can build something. Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I jumped up, exited the room, and closed the door behind me.

  Deep breaths, Maureen. Deep breaths. That’s what I told myself as I headed downstairs. We’d been at this less than five minute
s and already I was prepared to kill both of them.

  “Twenty-two grand,” said Ashley in an annoying, stick-itto-me way as I passed through the living room.

  “Huh?”

  “You just hit the twenty-two thousand page-view mark on YouTube,” she added. “And just so you know, sometimes they move you up into the bar at the top of the main welcome page once your video clip starts to get a lot of interest.”

  “Great,” I told her.

  “Just thought you’d want to know.”

  “You’re the best, sis,” I said, and headed into the garage.

  Junk. That’s all there was in our garage. Junk. The Three-Pees, I am sure, were probably choreographing some kind of cheerleader extravaganza featuring flipping and flying and fireworks, and here I was looking through garage junk trying to figure out how to compete with them.

  That’s when I saw the black bags. At least, that’s what they were known as in our house. My dad, when he bailed on us, had left a pile of stuff, and though us kids had wanted to throw it all away many times over, Mom told us to keep it because one day they might prove useful.

  Or we might want them.

  Or we might learn something valuable about our father from them. Or about ourselves.

  Buncha positive mumbo jumbo. At this point in my life, my dad didn’t mean squat to me. Never even thought about him, or the way he’d just run out on the whole entire family without any warning. But we did keep all the stuff, though I don’t think any of us had ever opened it since the day he’d flown the coop.

  And I certainly wasn’t about to open it just then, so I grabbed a broken vacuum cleaner, a few old packs of Play-doh, and a box of tacky Christmas ornaments.

  Maybe one of the bozos upstairs could juggle? I returned to my room.

  I entered and saw Beanpole and Q sitting on my bed, flipping through one of my sister’s stupid teenybopper magazines—the kind I never read.

  I grabbed the magazine from under their noses and tossed it onto the floor.

  “Why’d you do that?” asked Q.

  “’Cause we have work to do,” I snapped. But the real truth was, I hated the way those magazines always made me feel—like I was never thin enough or never hot enough or…well, just never enough. Stupid magazines just showed me all the things I would never have or be.

  Beanpole sat up, crossed her legs, and started bouncing up and down like a bobble-head doll.

  “Do you need to pee or something?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied. “It’s just that I’m having so much fun.”

  “I’m so glad,” I answered.

  “Is it okay if we dive in now?” she asked. “We waited for you, Mo.”

  “Dive in to what?” I replied.

  She pointed. I looked over and saw a plate of cookies.

  “Where’d those come from?” I asked.

  “Your mom sent them up.” Beanpole reached for one. They were Oreos, America’s favorite. “I think we should have a toast,”

  Beanpole said. “A toast?” I said. “Good idea,” replied Allergy Alice as she reached for a cookie.

  “Wait,” I said. “Can you even have an Oreo? I mean they’re not gonna, like, cause your tongue to evaporate or anything, are they?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Can I have an Oreo? Geesh, I’m a kid, ain’t I? I mean, my doctor probably wouldn’t want me to, but hey, you only live once, right?”

  She grabbed a cookie and raised it high. Then Beanpole took her cookie and raised it high as well. They waited for me.

  I looked at the plate of Oreos. Like I was gonna pass up on those. I grabbed a cookie.

  “A toast,” said Beanpole. “To taking down the ThreePees!”

  “And to getting our picture in the yearbook,” added Q.

  “And to not entirely humiliating ourselves,” I added.

  “And to”—Beanpole paused as she thought of something really perky to add—“the Nerd Girls!”

  “The Nerd Girls?” I repeated.

  “Hey, I like that,” said Q. “To the Nerd Girls.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I guess it couldda been worse.

  We clanked cookies and had our first official toast, each of us popping an entire Oreo into our mouth at the same time in one big, delicious bite.

  A moment later we all went “Blah!”

  “YUCK!”

  “EW-WW!”

  We started spitting and scraping the cookie from our tongues.

  “What’s in those?” asked Allergy Alice.

  “That’s the worst cookie I ever tasted,” said Beanpole.

  “Where did you”—spit-spit—“get these?” I asked.

  “From your mom,” said Beanpole. “Your brother brought them up.”

  “My brother?” I said. “MAR-TEE!” I screamed.

  “Why, what’s”—spit-spit—“wrong?” asked Beanpole.

  “What’s wrong is that my brother”—spit-spit—“scraped the cookie cream”—spit-spit—“out of the middle of these Oreos and replaced it”—spit-spit—“with toothpaste.”

  “Toothpaste?” said Beanpole. “Why would he”—spit-spit—“do that?”

  “’Cause he”—spit-spit—“thinks it’s funny.”

  “Toothpaste?” said Q. “But I’m allergic to mint!”

  “Allergic?” I asked. “What”—spit-spit—“happens?”

  Before she could answer, I started to see what would happen. Mint made Q’s ears turn red. Really red. Like fire-engine red.

  “Can I have a washcloth, please?” she asked politely. “With ice?”

  Her ears began to puff up like one of those cheapie inflatable plastic rafts you buy for a swimming pool.

  “Uh, yeah…sure,” I said, and went downstairs.

  Q’s throbbing lobster ears caused our talent meeting to end early. Not that we were really on the road to getting anything accomplished, but still, there were better ways to call it a day without turning someone into Dumbo the Flying Red-Eared Elephant.

  “More ice?” I asked as Q held washcloths to the sides of her head.

  “Naw, I’m good,” she answered. We stood out front and waited for her mom to pick her up. It took Mrs. Applebee no time at all to get to my house.

  Allergy Alice’s mother zipped up to the curb and threw her car into park.

  “I’m sorry about the toothpaste,” I said as Q began walking toward the vehicle. Her mother jumped from the car, looking panicked.

  “It’s okay,” answered Q. “My ears will probably go back to normal by Thursday.”

  “Are you okay? Are you okay?” asked Q’s mom, taking a look at her daughter’s ears. “Do you want to see Dr. Fishman?”

  “I’m all right, Mom,” Q said.

  “Let’s go see Dr. Fishman. Gotta be safe. Gotta be safe.” And with that, without even introducing herself to us, Allergy Alice’s mother put her into the car, and they zoomed off.

  Boy, she was really concerned about the toothpaste. Had something more serious happened than I thought? I looked at Beanpole.

  “Maybe this is, ya know, a bad idea,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Beanpole answered as she put on a pink bicycle helmet. “When you were downstairs, Alice told me she was having the best time she’d had in years, despite her scalp being on fire.”

  “Her scalp too?” I said.

  “Mint’s really hard on her system,” Beanpole said. “But this is like, so much fun! For me too. We’re having the best time.”

  She fastened her chinstrap and climbed aboard her bike.

  “Remember, we’re the Nerd Girls. Nothing can stop us.” She began to peddle away, raising her right hand high in glorious triumph. “Nothing!” she shouted.

  And then she crashed into a parked car.

  “Ouch!”

  She bounced up with a chunk of pink helmet missing.

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m okay,” she said as she hopped back onto her bike. “See you tomorrow, Mo!”

 
; I turned and went inside, too scared to watch Beanpole operate something as dangerous as a bicycle. That girl didn’t need a safety helmet; she needed body armor.

  I walked into the kitchen.

  “She’s allergic to mint, butthead.”

  “Wasn’t me,” said Marty with a mischievous smile as he tinkered with yet another electronic gizmo. I eyed his black bag.

  “What happened, Boo?”

  “Nothing, Mom,” I said. “Other than Marty and Dad just showed how they are perfectly related.”

  “Your father?” said my mom in shock. It’d been years since any of us had seen him or even mentioned his name.

  “Yep,” I said. “Just like Dad, right, Marty? Not caring who you hurt or how you do it just as long as you have a good time yourself. Stupid jerk.”

  I headed to my room.

  “What’s she talking about, Marty? Your father?”

  “Nothing, Mom,” Marty said in low voice. “Nothing.”

  Though the sun was shining and the weather was warm and pleasant, Q showed up to school the next day wearing earmuffs.

  The fluffy kind, with spots like they were made from Dalmatian fur.

  “Hey, doofus girl, moving to Alaska?” Kiki said with a huge laugh as the ThreePees cruised over to our lunch table.

  “Or Hawaii?” said Sofes, trying to really rub it in.

  I swear that girl would need fifty free bonus points to score fifty-one on an IQ test.

  Kiki sat down next to me. “I understand you ladies joined the talent contest,” she said.

  “Remember, Keek, they’re calling it an Aptitude Demonstration this year,” said Brittany-Brattany, taking a seat as well. “They want to be all politically correct.”

  “Whatever,” replied Kiki. “The point is, you dud-o-las don’t actually think you have a chance of winning, do you?”

  “Yeah, do you?” asked Sofes.

  Kiki reached for a piece of my bubble gum. I had brought four packs to school to eat after my apple. Trying to cut down on the caloric intake and all.

  She put a piece of my gum in her mouth and then blew a bubble to taunt me.

  “I mean, you must realize that you have no chance,” she added.

  “Oh yeah?” I said, and then I blew a bubble of my own right back at her.

  “Yeah,” she replied, and then she blew another bubble, this time slightly bigger, back at me.