"So...," Mom began, "What are you going to do about boys?"

"Uh, boys?"

"Yes, what are you going to do when boys start showing interest in you?"

"What do you think I should do?" I asked (and I think I managed to sound very innocent).

24. Miss No-Secrets

"Seriously, though," Ms. Tandy said. "There are times when I wish I was principal, but right now I am so glad I'm not."

"What?" Cory said. "You're not going to tell Mr. Bryant, are you?"

"She's not in trouble, is she?" Cory's friend cried.

"Oh, Marcie!" Eden murmured, and for once she wasn't giggling.

"I have to," Ms. Tandy said. "I don't know what he'll do or say, but we can't have students climbing the walls. You know what I mean."

"Oh, no," I said. I felt crushed. "You're not going to tell my parents, are you?"

She looked at my face for a moment, then asked in a low voice, "When are they leaving?"

"Sunday night."

"Look," Ms. Tandy said, in a confidential tone. "I know for a fact that Mr. Bryant is on a trip, and he won't be back until late Monday morning. So I can't tell him until then, and we should probably let him decide what the appropriate course of action is."

"Thank you," I said breathlessly.

"But," she cautioned, "BUT — don't go running around bragging about this, or saying that I let you off. You could still be in big trouble, and the more people talk about this, the more likely it is that you'll get some kind of disciplinary action."

"Disciplinary action!?" the three other students echoed, and Cory's friend said, "Punishment?"

Cory told her, "That's not fair! She helped me!"

"Let's leave fair and not-fair up to Mr. Bryant. Can you four just sit on this until Monday?"

"Yes," we all agreed.

"Okay," she said, and she gave me a hug. "Marcie, you are a panic. Seriously — for once, try to keep a low profile!" Smiling, she went back into the building.

The moment Ms. Tandy was gone, I turned to Eden and said, "Listen, Eden: DON'T TELL YOUR MOTHER. Okay? If you do, she'll tell my mother. Can you do that?"

Her eyes were enormous. She nodded. "Do you swear?" I asked.

She nodded again. "I swear."

Cory thanked me many times over, and promised that he'd get his parents to tell Mr. Bryant that I'd saved his life–

I interrupted him, and said, "Listen, whatever you do, don't do it until Monday, okay?"

He took some convincing, but after I explained my reasons, he finally agreed.

The next morning, Eden pushed me hard. I don't think I've ever had such an intense workout. Friday night, I thought I had the dance down pat. But today she showed me all kinds of stuff that I was doing wrong — stepping with the wrong foot, putting my foot down too hard, turning on my heel instead of my toe, starting movements too early, hanging my head when it should be up, and not opening my arms enough. At about ten to nine, I heard my mother arrive, and faintly we could hear the two women in conversation.

"We're almost ready for them," Eden told me.

"Are we?" I asked. "I don't know if I know this dance at all!"

"You do!" she said. "I'm just fine-tuning. Don't worry." Then she sniffed the air and told me, "I think you might need a quick shower before you go shopping with your mom, though."

"Thanks," I said, mugging.

She laughed and said, "You'd tell me if I was stinky, wouldn't you?"

"Would I?" I asked.

She looked shocked and gave me a little punch on the arm. "You're my friend! You'd have to tell me!"

"Okay," I said, grinning.

We ran throught the dance once more, then called our mothers.

"So," my mother said, as we drove off, "since I didn't get to give you your first doll, or send you to dance lessons, at least I can take you to get your ears pierced."

"Oooch!" I said, clutching my earlobes. "Does it hurt?"

"No, it doesn't hurt," she said. "At least, I don't think so. It was so long ago, I don't remember."

When we stopped at a red light, she took my hands and looked at my nails. "Do you know how to do your nails?" she asked. "Have you ever worn nail polish?" When I said "no" to both questions, she said that we could do that together tonight. "Unless you have other plans," she added.

"No, I don't have any plans," I said. Jerry knew that he couldn't call me while my folks were in town.

"So...," Mom began, "What are you going to do about boys?"

"Uh, boys?"

"Yes, what are you going to do when boys start showing interest in you?"

"What do you think I should do?" I asked (and I think I managed to sound very innocent).

"I think you should tell them that you're not allowed to date."

"That is what I told them," I replied, proudly.

"'Them'?" she repeated. "So boys, plural, have already asked you out?"

"Well, no," I hedged, "No, not boys — boy — one boy asked me out."

"Hmm," she said, and much to my relief, she let the subject drop.

Parents are so sneaky! The thing is, you have to pay attention ALL THE TIME around them. They wait until you're relaxed and happy, and then they throw in a zinger! I'm talking about my mother — at the moment.

What happened is that we had a nice morning. Mom had gone through my wardrobe on Friday, and pointed out — just as Alice had — that with the addition of a few skirts and tops I could do a lot of mix-and-match. Our mission was to find other pieces that fit with what I already had. We dug through an enormous thrift store together. In the beginning I was overwhelmed. I felt like we were going to have to look at everything, but she narrowed it down: women's clothes, skirts, my size. That was more manageable. And then, we only looked at the nice ones, so in the end, out of a ton of junk, we found six possible skirts. I tried them all. The one that I loved was way too tight (I couldn't pull it up over my butt!), but we ended up buying three.

So I learned something about how to shop. The whole day went like that. Mom really knew what she was doing. I would look at a rack of clothes and see a bunch of ugly stuff for old ladies. She would go through the same rack and find things that I wanted to wear. It was like magic!

Somewhere along the way we had a quick lunch, and in the late afternoon I got my ears pierced. I didn't even know I had a birthstone, but now I have an aquamarine stud in each ear! (That's March, in case you don't know!) My mother smiled. "Now you can borrow your aunt's earrings," she said.

"Does she have any?" I asked.

Mom raised her eyebrows. "You'd be surprised. Your aunt is like a dozen people in one. You think you know her, then suddenly you find a new side to her, one that's been there all along. Did you know that she worked for a couple of years at an AIDS mission in Africa?"

I was astonished. It didn't seem like something Aunt Jane would do at all.

"Well, she did," Mom replied. "She's like a cabinet full of hidden drawers. You never know what you'll find." Mom looked at me in silence for a while. "I'm beginning to think that you're like that too."

"I don't think so," I said, sincerely. "I don't have any secrets."

My mother almost choked, she laughed so hard. When she was done, she said, "Okay then, Miss No-Secrets! Let's go have a snack."

She was still shaking her head and chuckling to herself when the waiter left our food. "Oh, Marcie," she said, laying emphasis on my name. "It must be nice to have no secrets, nothing to hide."

I blushed and poked at my ice cream.

"Oh, I wanted to ask you," Mom said. "That little girl on the train, what was her name?"

"Nina," I replied.

"Is she Jerry's little sister?"

"Yeah–" I froze with my spoon halfway to my mouth. "Uh...," I wasn't sure what to say next. How much did Mom know?

She looked at me, waiting to see what I'd say. I couldn't read her face. Was she mad? Upset?

"How..." I began.

"Eden's mother told me," she said. "I was so shocked I almost dropped my coffee cup on her nice clean floor. Why didn't you tell us? Your father specifically asked if there was anything else you should tell us. Does your aunt know?"

"Yes." I managed to swallow a bit of ice cream and said, "Aunt Jane knows everything."

Mom looked off in the distance. "I doubt that very much."

Then she sighed. "The longer I stay here, the longer I think I should stay. You've been doing this for one week and... and all I can think is What's going to happen next week? I don't know if I can stand the suspense."

The suspense was killing me, too. I wanted to ask the obvious question, which was Are you going to tell Dad? but the even bigger question was whether she'd stop me from being Marcie.

"You know what I'd like to do?" she said. "Not far from where your father and I are staying, there's a high school — it's run by nuns, and it's just for girls. I'd like to take you back with us and send you there."

My jaw dropped. My eyes goggled. "A Catholic girls school?" I asked. "You'd send me to a Catholic girls school?"

She said, "You'd look cute in their uniform. The skirt is a blue plaid. It's actually pretty nice. With white knee socks. It would make the whole wardrobe issue a lot easier, and there wouldn't be any boys to worry about."

"Mom!" I said — I didn't know what else to say. I was in total shock.

"Or maybe you'd prefer your father's option — military school?"

"No!" I said. Compared to military school, Catholic school sounded great. Not that I wanted to go there, but at least I could still be Marcie.

My mother looked surprised. "Look at your face!" she said. "If you had to choose, you'd go to the girls school!"

"Well, yeah," I said. "I don't want to go to military school."

"Oh, my goodness," she said. "Your father was just trying to scare you."

"He was?" I said. "So there is no military school? And is there really a girls high school near you?"

"Well, yes, that part is true," she said. "There is a military school and there is a girls school. And frankly, if you're going to be doing this, I'd feel a lot better if you were down the street instead of across the country. At least I could keep an eye on you. And don't think that your father wouldn't consider the military school."

Well, *that* was confusing.

I took a big breath and let it out slow. What could I say? I didn't want to go anywhere. I liked things the way they were: my parents off in New Jersey, me in California with my new life and new identity... I didn't want to move. Still, I couldn't get the image of the girls-school uniform out of my head. I tried to fight it, to block it out — I was afraid that if it stuck in my head and took hold, I'd have to do it.

Plus, my parents didn't know about my wall-climbing incident. That could be the last straw.

"Don't look so glum," Mom said, as she scooped a spoonful of my ice cream. "Tell me about Jerry."

© 2007 by Kaleigh Way