A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions Read Free Page B

don’t know what I’m gonna do,” Q told us. “But I’m gonna do something. I have to. It’s my mom.”
    Q used to hide her emotions and bury her feelings, but ever since she came clean about the guilt of surviving, and feeling as if the car accident were her fault, she’s turned into some sort of fountain of honesty. At least among us, that is. To the outside world, Q is still a semi-odd recluse, but with Beanpole and me she is a straight shooter. Like for example, if she likes your purple T-shirt, she’ll tell you, “Cool purp shirt.” But if she thinks your green flip-flops look weak, she’ll tell you, “Lame-o foot canoes…Try a new set of toe kayaks.”
    Yeah, sometimes you have to decode what she’s talking about, but still, she tells it like it is. Me, I struggle with honesty and expressing my real feelings. I mean, my mom could put on forty-five pounds and walk around the house knocking picture frames off the table with her butt, and still I’d say things like, “Put on weight? Nope, haven’t noticed a thing. But perhaps you could pass the doughnuts.”
    Sarcasm’s more my thing. I blame television.
    â€œYou know,” I said, thinking about this, “I say we make a pact to be truthful with one another. Really honest. Beanpole, tell me something honest.”
    Beanpole raised her eyes and thought deeply about the question. “I love my new phone.”
    â€œHow profound. I see Nobel prizes in your future. Q, how ’bout you?” I said. “Tell me one honest thing, just one truthful thing about this whole mixed-up, crazy universe.”
    â€œYour gluteus says Aardvarks on it,” she replied. “ Aardvarks is a”— Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh —“funny word.”
    I stood, put my hands on my hips, and turned to show the lettering on my backside.
    â€œMight I point out that these are the new, Capri-style school athletic pants I’m wearing?” I answered. “You know, trying to show some school spirit over here.”
    â€œAardvarks.”
    â€œDon’t say that.”
    â€œAardvarks.”
    â€œLess funny the second time.”
    â€œActually, it was the fourth,” Q answered. “Accurate statistics are important to me.”
    Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh.
    â€œAardvark. Fifth time.”
    Deep breaths, Maureen, I told myself. Deep breaths.
    â€œWell, what’s wrong with being an Aardvark, anyway? I like being an Aardvark,” Beanpole declared. Then, to emphasize her point, she stood like George Washington about to make a speech at Valley Forge. “After all, I am who I—” BAM! Beanpole smashed her head into a shelf on the wall, banging her noggin so hard I thought she’d given herself a concussion.
    Oh, yeah, in case I forgot to mention, Beanpole is prone to accidents the same way I am prone to cookies.
    â€œDon’t worry, don’t worry, I’m okay,” she declared, sitting down and rubbing the top of her cranium. “I’m okay.”
    â€œCan you guys please just tell me one thing?” I asked. “And be honest.” I hesitated, reluctant to say the words aloud, even to my closest friends. “Do these pants make my thighs look, you know, like turkey drumsticks?”
    Beanpole studied my legs. “You mean like the kind injected with hormones to plump ’em up?”
    I glared.
    â€œNo, not at all,” Beanpole said, backpedaling. “Not at all.”
    â€œYou are so unconvincing.” I reached for my backpack. “All right, can we leave now, please? We’re not even supposed to be in here.”
    â€œBut they never lock the door,” Beanpole said.
    â€œThe lock’s busted,” Q said, smelling her carrot stick before taking another bite. “Whole school knows it.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean we’re allowed in here,” I said. “And why do you