HARDAPPLE ORCHARDS
HAYRIDE
11:15 AM
October 24th
The rickety Hardapple Orchards wagon jerked and wobbled as it rolled over the clumps of hay and horse poo that covered the trails. The entire seventh-grade class struggled to keep their hot chocolate from spilling all over the rough wool blankets that covered them. Massie fixed her gaze on the passing apple trees and thought about how she'd get back at Becca Wilder.
It was their second field trip of the year, and despite the chilly air and the bumpy ride, it was going much better than the first.
“Hey, Kristen,” Britton Daniels shouted toward the back of the wagon. “You're not going to be selling any bad makeup on this trip, are you?”
Britton and her B-list friends giggled.
Massie saw Kristen clench her jaw muscles.
“Don't let her get to you,” Massie said. “How were you supposed to know the makeup would make everyone's lips swell up?”
“Yeah,” Dylan Marvil said. “It's not your fault they got rushed to the hospital.” She twirled a piece of long red hair around her index finger.
“Dylan's right.” Alicia's beautiful almond-shaped eyes looked hazel in the sunlight. “It's their fault for having sensitive skin.”
Despite the comforting words of her best friends, Kristen refused to let it go.
“Hey, Medusa,” Kristen fired back. “This time I thought I'd sell you something from my new line of power tools. Maybe an electric saw will help you comb through that lice trap you call your hair.”
Britton ran her hand across the back of her head. Massie, Alicia, and Dylan roared with laughter.
“That's enough, girls,” Heidi said. Their nature-loving science teacher was zigzagging her way over to Kristen, clutching onto her students for balance as she passed. When she finally reached her target, Heidi rested her palm on Kristen's shoulder and continued her lesson.
“We will be at the pumpkin patch in a few minutes. In ancient Greece pumpkins were called pepons, which is Greek for ‘large melon.’” The turbulent wagon made her voice shake.
“That's a nice pair of pepons you got there,” Massie whispered to Alicia.
Alicia was super-sensitive about her big boobs and Massie knew it. But she wasn't about to pass up the opportunity for a good joke.
Alicia responded by smacking Massie on the arm as hard as she could.
Dylan laughed out loud, but it was Kristen's cackle that caught their teacher's attention.
“One more interruption and there will be no pumpkin picking for you today,” Heidi said to Kristen.
Kristen lifted the wide collar of her turtleneck over her blushing face and hid.
The horse-drawn cart rolled up to a huge pumpkin patch and Farmer Randy pulled the reins until they came to a complete stop. Heidi started explaining how the pumpkins' bright orange color came from beta-carotene, but the girls had already tuned her out. Most of them were too busy scanning the orchard so they could outpick each other when they were finally let loose.
“Someone should tell these losers that they can buy pumpkins for twenty bucks on every corner in our neighborhood,” Massie said.
“What? And ruin all their fun?” Alicia put her hand on her heart and shook her head to show she pitied her naive classmates.
The second Heidi unlatched the wooden gate on the side of the wagon, the “losers” busted out like stampeding bulls.
Claire and Layne held hands and laughed hysterically while they ran, moving as fast as their matching steel-toed hiking boots could take them, which wasn't very fast at all.
Layne's friends Meena and Heather ran along beside them.
Massie, Alicia, Dylan, and Kristen trailed behind. They had no interest in pumpkins, picking, or soil.
“Wanna know what we're doing this year for Halloween?” Massie asked.
“Hmmm, lemme guess,” Dylan said. “Trick-or-treating, eating fistfuls of candy, gaining five pounds, and then eating nothing but Slim Fast shakes for a week?”
“Nope,” Massie said. “This year we're going to do something totally different.”
“Ehmagod.” Alicia stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face Massie. Kristen and Dylan stopped too but weren't exactly sure why.
“You're gonna beat Becca to the boy-girl party, aren't you?”
Massie responded with a cocky half smile and a nod.
Dylan and Kristen jumped up and down with excitement. And soon all four of them were bouncing together in a giddy huddle shouting, “Hello, weenie!” over and over again.
“I can't wait to see the look on Becca's face when she hears the news,” Dylan said.
“Why wait?” Massie said. “Let's tell her now.”
Becca and Liz were only a few feet away. The two muscular gymnasts were surrounded by a group of girls who were cheering as they struggled to lift their massive pumpkin off the ground.
Becca was dressed in one of her usual girly chiffon tops, which always looked out of place on her stocky physique. Her dirty blond shoulder-length hair hung flat and lifeless around her oval face. Massie and the rest of the Pretty Committee had once decided if it weren't for her piercing blue eyes, no one would look at her twice.
Liz was a petite version of Becca, without the eyes. Hers were a dull shade of brown. People noticed Liz because she was constantly orange from her addiction to spray tanning.
“I can't tell where that pumpkin ends and Liz begins,” Massie said.
Alicia, Dylan, and Kristen cracked up as they tiptoed toward their targets so their heels wouldn't get stuck in the mud.
“Hey, Becca,” Massie shouted.
“Hey.” Becca took off her Kangol cap and fluffed up her hair. “Did you come to check out my pumpkin? It's so big, Farmer Randy went to get a wheelbarrow so we can get it on the wagon.”
“No, I came over to tell you the meaning of life,” Massie said. Kristen, Dylan, and Alicia snickered.
“What are you talking about?” Liz asked. “Nobody knows the meaning of life.”
“Massie does.” Alicia sat down on Becca's pumpkin and kicked her leg back and forth, each time denting it a little more with the heel of her boot.
“What are you doing?” Becca screeched. “Get off that.”
“Puh-lease, I'm not even touching it.”
The girls who had been watching Becca and Liz wrestle the pumpkin took a few steps back. They didn't want to get involved.
“So, what is the meaning of life?” Liz asked.
“I'm having a boy-girl party for Halloween,” Massie replied.
“No way!” Becca screeched. She stomped her foot in the dirt. “That's not fair. That was my idea.”
“THAT'S LIFE!” Massie, Kristen, Alicia, and Dylan shouted at the same time. They finished rubbing it in with a round of high fives.
The girls on the sidelines giggled into their hands.
Becca was stunned.
“Do something,” Liz mouthed to her.
But before Becca could do anything, there was a loud pop. Becca whipped her head around in search of the source.
“Oops.” Alicia's big brown eyes were wide as she feigned surprise. “Sorry.” She jumped to the ground and pointed to her Jimmy Choo boot sticking out of the pumpkin.
Alicia stood on one foot and tugged at the heel while Kristen and Dylan held the pumpkin down to keep it from rolling over.
“I can't believe you did that.” Becca's bottom lip twitched as she fought back tears.
The girls in the background giggled again.
“Let's tell Heidi,” Liz said.
“No, don't,” Becca said, grabbing her friend by the arm. She knew better than to tell.
“Got it!” Alicia pulled the boot free. She wiped the slimy orange guts off the heel and smeared them on the side of the pumpkin.
“Are you really having a boy-girl Halloween party?” Becca asked.
“Wait, Becca,” Liz chimed in. “Maybe hers isn't on the thirty-first.” She clearly thought she was on to something.
Even Becca rolled her eyes when she heard that one.
“Unless the date of Halloween has officially changed, mine is one the thirty-first,” Massie said. “But since you think that I'm, quote, slipping, end quote, and that I'm, quote, not in charge like I used to be, end quote, don't count on an invite.”
Massie, Alicia, Dylan, and Kristen turned and walked off, leaving two mortified girls, their shocked friends, and one mangled pumpkin behind them.
“Come on, ladies,” Heidi shouted. She was standing two rows away pointing excitedly at a pile of miniature pepons, as if that would suddenly inspire them to participate.
“Pretend you're deaf,” Massie said. They ignored the teacher and changed directions at the same time.
“So, what exactly goes on at a boy-girl party?” Dylan asked. She tried to sound interested instead of nervous, but Massie saw right through her.
“It's one big make-out session,” Massie said. “Only at my party everyone will be in costumes, so we won't even know who we're making out with.”
“Are you serious?” Kristen asked.
“Are you stupid?” Massie shot back. “I'm kidding.”
“Actually, it is kind of like that.” Alicia tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder.
“What?” Massie, Dylan, and Kristen all asked at the same time.
“I went to a boy-girl at my cousin's this summer in Spain, and we played Kiss or Be Kissed for like five hours.” Alicia rolled back her shoulders and stood confidently before them. They stared back blankly.
“What?” Alicia asked. “You've never played K or B K'ed?”
“Are you going to tell us what it is?” Massie snapped. She hated it when one of her friends knew more than she did.
“Basically, when it's your turn, you have to pick someone to kiss. And if you don't, the person beside you makes the decision for you.” Alicia paused. “I kissed so many boys, by the end of the night I'd gone through an entire tube of lip gloss.”
Massie had no idea how to respond. She suddenly felt like her best friend was a total stranger.
“Well, I'm not sure if that game will fly with my mom, but we can try,” Massie said. For the first time in her life, She hoped her mother would be around to meddle.
Massie noticed Kristen and Dylan staring at her, trying to read her expression. She didn't want them to know she was secretly panicking too, so she turned toward the nearest pumpkin and kicked it.
“This one's not quite ripe yet,” she said to no one in particular.
“I say we wear really sexy costumes,” Alicia suggested.
“I'm all for that.” Dylan twirled around to show off her new trim waistline and got smacked in the face by her own wavy red hair as she spun. “Seven days and I've already lost five pounds on the South Beach Diet. I'm going to look like a supermodel by Halloweenie.”
“I'll need an unsexy costume to wear to the party or my parents won't let me out of the house,” Kristen said.
Alicia turned around and aimed her big brown eyes right at Kristen.
“Why don't we make it a ‘Be Yourself’ party and you can go as a nun?”
“Does that mean you'll be going as a bitch or a slut?” Kristen shot back.
“Both,” Alicia said with a mischievous grin.
“Just because my parents are total prudes doesn't mean I am. Besides, I want to be sexy in case Derrick Harrington is there.” Kristen's face turned bright red when she said the boy's name. “You're inviting him, right, Mass?”
“Given.”
“When did you start liking Derrick Harrington?” Dylan asked. She sat down on a big pumpkin and crossed her legs.
“I've had a crush on him for the last few weeks,” Kristen said. “Since the OCD benefit.”
The annual black-tie auction took place at Massie's house every September. It was the community's way of raising money for the local private school, but more importantly, it was an opportunity to flirt with boys. That night Massie had developed a secret crush on Cam Fisher. He was part of the A-list group at Briarwood and was known for being an ah-mazing soccer goalie. But Massie was more impressed that he knew the words to every song they danced to. That night Massie decided not to tell her friends about her crush until she could be absolutely sure Cam liked her back. She was hoping the Halloween party would give her the answers she was looking for.
“Massie, I told you I liked Derrick Harrington, remember?” Kristen asked.
“No way.” Dylan rolled her eyes. “I told Massie that I liked him first.”
“No, you told me,” Alicia said.
“Oh,” Dylan replied. “And you didn't tell Kristen? I'm shocked.”
“I didn't need the points that week. I had already hit twenty.”
“Whatever. I thought it was obvious. I mean, we danced all night.”
“Yeah, but you said he moved like he was getting electrocuted,” Kristen said.
“Well, you said he was too short for you and all he wanted to talk to you about was soccer,” Dylan replied.
“Which is a good thing, since I LOVE SOCCER,” Kristen said.
“Why don't you let Derrington decide who he likes,” Massie said. She smiled to herself for coming up with “Derrington,” because it was a total soap opera name. How appropriate, considering the drama.
“Fine,” Kristen and Dylan both said.
“Not that either one of you would know what to do with him if you got him,” Alicia teased.
Both girls scowled at Alicia and then at each other.
“Now can we please stop fighting and start talking about our costumes?” Massie hated when her friends fought. The thought of her group splitting petrified her. Not only would school be boring if they couldn't hang out together, but then Becca would be right. Massie wouldn't be in charge anymore. Her friends were her strength, and without all three of them she would start to slip.
Heidi blew her whistle, which signaled it was time to get back on the wagon.
Massie, Kristen, and Alicia grabbed the first pumpkins they saw, and Dylan picked up a tiny, bumpy gourd. The girls roared with laughter at Dylan's last-minute choice, and for a moment their fighting seemed like a thing of the past.
They boarded the wagon and reclaimed their seats in the back.
“I gave it a lot of thought last night, and I think we should be Dirty Devils,” Massie continued. “That way we can be dirty and evil at the same time.”
“That's a great idea,” Dylan said. She popped four pieces of bubble gum in her mouth at once. Massie knew this meant Dylan was still upset.
“Yeah, I love it,” Alicia joined in.
“What exactly does that mean?” Kristen asked.
“Well, for the dirty part we'll wear tight shredded T-shirts so it looks like we've been in a bunch of pitchfork battles and red microminis with black Calvin boy shorts underneath,” Massie said. “And then we'll have tails and horns for the devil part.”
“Ooh, we should write messages on the back of the boy shorts so everyone can read them,” Alicia said.
“Yeah, in glitter,” Dylan added.
“I was gonna say that,” Kristen said.
Dylan rolled her eyes.
When Farmer Randy pulled into the parking lot, Dylan leaned across Massie and Alicia and plunked her bumpy gourd on Kristen's lap.
“Since you want everything that's mine, you might as well have this too,” she said.
“Don't mind if I do,” Kristen said. She stuffed the comma-shaped fruit in her bag.
CURRENT STATE OF THE UNION
IN OUT
Massie Block Becca Wilder/Liz Goldman
Fighting over boys Fighting over toys
Gourds Pumpkins