Night of the Pompon

1

The Floating Legs

Night lasts a long time when it’s winter in Antarctica.

But, unfortunately, I live in Texas, so I never get enough sleep.

Because of this, I frequently have delusions. I think I can do all kinds of crazy, superhuman things.

Like take pre-algebra instead of regular seventh-grade math.

Believe me, that was just about the biggest mistake I’d ever made. I don’t know what I was thinking! My counselor told me, Jendra, your placement test results are extremely high. I think you can test into Mrs. O’Donnahee’s pre-algebra class. And then she gave me a peanut-butter cup. So what could I do?

I think you’ll enjoy the challenge, she said.

And I was like, Okay!

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So there I was, sitting at the back of the class one muggy Wednesday morning at about 8 A.M., staring at the equation on the overhead and thinking, That is so fascinating!

Mrs. O’Donnahee makes little lines through her sevens just like I do! Isn’t that just too, too cool? I call them my Eurosevens.

Now, as for the equation . . .

7x + 3 = 24

I stared at it for a very long time. Like five minutes. Until the numbers started to move around and change places. Mrs. O’Donnahee was explaining something about isolating variables. But I hadn’t done any homework for about three weeks, so I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

7x + 3 = 24

I stared at it again. This time I concentrated really hard. Suddenly I had an epiphany!

(My mom’s an English teacher, so I like to throw around literary terms.) An epiphany, in case you don’t know, is a burst of deep, amazing truth in a sudden brilliant, blinding flash.

So I had an epiphany. And I knew . . .

I am never going to understand algebra!

Well, as you can imagine, that was a pretty big relief because then I didn’t have to waste my time trying anymore. I was free to stare out the window and doodle on my paper. Eurosevens are great for starting up a game of hangman, by the way.

The only problem is, hangman isn’t the most entertaining game to play by yourself. In fact, you pretty much can’t play by yourself.

So, after about two minutes of trying, I was getting really bored.

I knew I needed something else to do. I needed some plan of action, some way to escape. Something daring. Something thrilling . . .

Mrs. O’Donnahee, I said, raising my hand at the same time, can I go to the bathroom?

Mrs. O’Donnahee glared back at me wickedly, her pupils lit up like smoldering coals. No! she screamed. "Never! Never! Never!"

Okay, so that didn’t really happen. I just figured that since I’m writing a book and everything, I should at least try to make it interesting and use all that stuff you learn about in language arts—you know, similes, conflict.

Of course, Mrs. O’Donnahee let me go to the bathroom. I mean, I live in Texas, not Siberia!

Have you ever noticed that the halls are really quiet during class? I guess that’s because there’s nobody in them, duh! But, I mean, it’s so quiet it’s almost eerie. It’s like you’re walking through a ghost town, and you’re the only person left alive. Or like you’re escaping from a mental institution or something.

Or maybe I’m just weird. Who knows.

But the point is, as I walked through the empty halls to the bathroom, I had the strangest feeling that something really, really weird was about to happen.

Of course, I always have that feeling. I think it’s because I’m bored a lot, and I just really want something to happen. And then, sometimes, I get lucky, and something actually does happen.

And that day was one of those times because as soon as I stepped into the bathroom, I noticed that something was seriously wrong. I had the eeriest sensation that I wasn’t alone in there. Then, as I was shutting the stall door, I happened to look up and see two legs dangling above my head.

I thought that was a little unusual, especially since it was a girls’ bathroom, and the legs were wearing pressed khaki slacks and men’s loafers. In fact, as the legs started moving higher and higher up, one of the shoes slipped off and fell into the toilet. Meanwhile, the legs floated away, up and out of sight. For the first time I noticed that one of the white ceiling panels had been removed. That was how the legs had made their grand exit—through the square hole in the ceiling. As soon as the legs disappeared completely, the ceiling panel mysteriously slipped back into place. Good-bye, legs. Good-bye, hole. Good-bye, hall pass.

I say good-bye, hall pass because while I was craning my neck, staring at the ceiling like a big moron, I accidentally dropped Mrs. O’Donnahee’s paper hall pass into the toilet, too.

I winced. Good thing it’s laminated, I thought as I reached into the toilet bowl to snatch back the pass and fish out the shoe. A split second later, holding the drippy shoe and the slick pass in my wet hand, I suddenly felt a wave of utter ickiness.

I tried to fix things by setting the shoe on the toilet paper dispenser and rinsing my hands off (in the sink), but that didn’t really help. Now that the legs were gone, I was just stuck with that stupid shoe. And I didn’t have a clue what to do with it. Actually, I didn’t know what to do at all. Going to the bathroom suddenly seemed kind of anticlimactic. Know what I mean? And what else can a person really do in a bathroom?

After thinking about it a minute, I decided that the best plan was to sit on the bathroom counter and stare at the shoe until I figured out what was going on. Now, that may not sound like such a great plan, but think about it this way—my runner-up plan was to go back to class.

Why would some guy’s legs be floating up through the ceiling? I asked myself. The first answer that came to mind was alien abduction. Gee, I wonder why! Maybe because every single thing in bookstores, and on posters, and on TV, and in the movies now is about aliens? My friend Leah keeps telling me that people who believe in aliens are just stupid and immature (like me). But whenever anyone brings up the subject of aliens invading the Earth, she suddenly gets real quiet and starts to tremble a little. Leah scares easily.

Personally, I’m not expecting an extraterrestrial invasion anytime soon. I mean, sure, sometimes, I think it might be kind of fun if aliens came to our school. I don’t really know what we would do exactly if they did, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be pre-algebra, and that’s a good enough start for me.

But in the meantime, I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe that aliens had abducted some guy from a stall of a second-story girls’ bathroom. Even though that would have really been cool.

It’s easy, and even kind of fun to believe in all kinds of mythical creatures and extraterrestrial beings. But, really, most events, no matter how weird they seem, actually have a very normal, rational, humanly possible explanation. And to me, that’s what’s really amazing and really scary. People do some pretty weird stuff for some pretty strange reasons. People you think you know. People who know you.

Who pulled those legs through the bathroom ceiling? I didn’t know then. But I do know now. And the way I found out had a lot to do with the crumpled piece of pompon I found stuck to the bottom of the soggy shoe.

2

Tina

For a long time I really wanted to live in Paris so I could go to a sidewalk café and eat lunch on the banks of the Rhine. Then my dad told me the Rhine was in Germany. But it doesn’t really matter because I can’t speak French anyway, so this whole fantasy really doesn’t make much sense. I just like the idea of eating croissants outside in the sunshine and ordering lunch from a waiter with a little mustache and a lopsided beret.

Eating in the cafeteria just isn’t the same. I mean, the lunch monitor lady does have a little mustache, but the similarities stop there. Sad but true.

I was already sitting at our usual table when my best friend, Leah Livingston, glided over to sit beside me. Leah’s been my best friend since fourth grade, and in all those years she’s never really changed. She’s one of those people who likes to do absolutely everything by the rules all the time. And she expects everyone else to be just as perfect as she is; otherwise she throws whiny little fits. It gets annoying sometimes, but I guess it’s not her fault. Her mom’s real overprotective. And Leah’s pretty, so people put up with her.

As soon as Leah put her tray down on the table, I set the shoe down next to it.

Leah cocked an eyebrow. Jendra, she said with a grin, trying to be funny, are you dieting again?

I found this in the bathroom, I told her bluntly.

You’re amazing, said our mutual friend Matthew Greyson, plunking down in the seat on my other side. I can never find shoes I like! Matt and Leah and I always hang around together, but we’re just friends. People never believe that, but that’s too bad.

"Why did you bring that thing to the table?" Leah demanded. The shoe was pretty grungy-looking. I’ll give her that. She gave it the evil eye and tried to protect her pizza from it by moving