“Puke! No? Barf!”
“Right.” Next card. “That short substitute always smelled like it.”
“Garlic!” Amanda yelled.
“Shelby Ladis was obsessed with them.”
“Vampires.”
“The thing I hated to do at camp every summer.”
“Hiking.” Amanda turned to my mother. “He used to write to me, complaining.”
“I never knew,” she said.
“We’re on the clock.” I tapped the next card. “If I threatened to tell everyone about your ninth grade crush on Paolo, the exchange student, it would be this.”
“Blackmail.”
“Good! My mom once totally humiliated me by walking into one at Hot Topic.”
“Dressing room,” Amanda yelled just as the timer ran out.
“Yes! Yes!” Amanda did a victory dance but came just short of taunting my mom. “How many points was that?”
“Eight,” Tim said, “and I’m feeling kind of invisible.”
My mother’s team went next, and it took them a full three minutes to get the words octopus and brunch.
We let Tim be the clue giver the next time, and we still got five points.
“We had these in the rice last year,” Tim said.
“Moths,” Amanda said. “Don’t tell people that. It’s gross.”
“Since when is he people?” Tim gestured at me.
“I knew about it anyway.” I was happy she thought of me as people. She wouldn’t have cared what I thought a week ago.
When it was Amanda’s turn, she said, “They made us do this in PE.”
I winced. “Square dancing.”
For her last one, she said, “You acted like one.”
I knew it because I’d seen the card before. “A jerk. I’m sorry.”
We won, twenty to eleven.
When Amanda was on her way out the door, I said, “Is there any way you’d consider maybe unblocking my number? I have some things I’ve been wondering about.”
She laughed and pointed to my phone. “Try it.”
I texted her:
Do you think anyone understood the irony of naming the Miami airport MIA?
I heard her phone vibrate.
“I unblocked it a week ago.”
Five minutes after she left, she texted me: People in Miami don’t understand irony
Don’t get me started
We texted all night.
And, after that, we were friends again.
But I knew, now, I didn’t want to be friends with Amanda. I loved her. I wanted that big gesture.
18
It was Sommer Hernandez who reminded me I’d agreed to do the Mr. Lion King contest for homecoming.
At first, I’d planned on begging off. I didn’t run with Sydnie’s crowd anymore, and they were the ones who’d put me up to it. Plus, the contest had a talent component, which sounded like a lot of work.
Not that the word talent was, strictly speaking, accurate. Last year, Stephen Richardson played his stomach.
I told Matt this, and he said, “But you do have a talent.”
That’s when I realized it might be an opportunity.
I told Sommer that I absolutely would like to be part of the grand tradition of the Mr. Lion King contest.
Then I got to work.
I didn’t tell Amanda about it. She’d think it was dumb. It was dumb. I didn’t tell many people about it. Strictly on a need-to-know basis.
I did tell Matt.
The night of the “pageant,” I was sixth out of eight contestants, a pretty respectable placement since they seemed to have put it in reverse order of coolness. Only two seniors were after me. I sat out in the audience with Amanda, watching the first of the talents, Garrett Greenstein, giving a karate demonstration. We were in the front row, which was good because we had a good view, but bad if Garrett happened to fly out into the theater.
“Okay, okay, guys,” he said. “These are the basic karate stances. Kiba dachi.” He stood with his legs apart. “Kokutsu dachi.” He leaned most of his weight on his back leg. Then he shifted. “Zenkutsu dachi.”
“Wow,” Amanda whispered. “What would make someone agree to do this—blackmail?”
“Maybe he wants to impress a girl. That’s what motivates a lot of human conduct.”
“Here’s some strikes,” Garrett said and started hitting and kicking.
“I hope someone’s filming this for YouTube,” Amanda said.
“Yeah.” I was getting a little worried.
For his big finale, Garrett kicked a board. It didn’t budge, and Garrett tumbled back.
“Wait! Wait! Do-over!” He rubbed his legs, then tried again.
This time, it worked. The crowd went wild. Okay, they stopped laughing and clapped politely, especially Garrett’s friends. Which was more than they’d done when he fell on his ass.
“Good job, Garrett,” Alex Pacheco, who was announcing the show, said. “And now, Josh Wilson!”
“Hello, everyone!” Josh was on the football team, varsity, even though he was only a freshman. Huge cheers.
“I’ll be doing a dramatic reading”—he held up his phone—“of Kanye West’s tweets.”
He scrolled through them, reading, “I’m so lucky.” He scrolled some more. “Dreams are worth more than money.”
“Hey,” I whispered to Amanda, “I’ll be back. I told Andrew I’d help him with something for his act.”