Part 3 (1/2)
Stevie: Aha! I was right.
Joey: Can we please stop talking about kissing? It's gross!
Me: What's gross about it?
Joey: Um, h.e.l.lo! There's spit involved, in case you hadn't noticed. And germs! Tons of germs. And pizza breath. And sometimes the guy sneezes on you.
Stevie: And braces. Don't forget braces. Total lip lock.
Me: Thou speaketh of such matters which thou haveth not a clue.
Stevie: Don't thou meaneth ”clue-eth”?
After leaving Alex's room, I felt all jumpy inside. Not sure why. Maybe it was the thought of telling Mom and Dad I got detention for talking during the a.s.sembly. It's not like it was Bad Kids Detention - I just had to stay after cla.s.s in Ms. Carter-Dunne's homeroom with Olivia and Wire Rims. But still.
I plopped down on my bed, holding my head in my hands.
”What's the matter with you?” Joey asked.
”Frogs, for one thing. They're making my head hurt. Ever since the storm, they sound louder than ever. It sounds like we have a frog right in this room!”
”Um,” Joey said. ”I might have something to tell you.”
”I know.”
She reached into a tank under her bed and held out a bright green little frog with masked eyes. ”Meet Sir Croaks-a-Lot.”
”He is cute,” I admitted.
”So can I keep him in our room for a little while? I'll let him go, I promise. As soon as he gets better. He's missing two toes.”
”We'll see. You'll have to ask Mom and Dad, you know.” It wasn't Joey, or the frog - I just had to get out of there. I grabbed my camera and yanked a hoodie over my head.
”Where're you going?” Joey asked with a take-me-with-you sad-puppy look on her face.
”Cloudspotting.”
”Cloud spitting? Sounds weird,” Joey said.
”Cloudspotting. It's like those people in England who like to watch trains, only instead of trains, I'm going to watch clouds. It's for Earth Science. You know, my big poster board, where I have to doc.u.ment all different types of clouds? I thought I might find some unusual ones, now that the storm is over.”
Joey grabbed her slicker off the hook in the front hallway. ”Hurry up,” I said impatiently. ”Before all the clouds blow away.”
We stepped out under a sky full of patchy clouds, but the sun was starting to break through. Joey and I headed down the sidewalk toward Three Sisters Park, dodging puddles and climbing over branches knocked down from the storm. By the time we got to the top of Reindeer Hill, I was out of breath and my heart was pounding.
I stretched out on my back, crossed my feet, and folded my hands behind my head, staring up at the blue.
Joey and I lay there for a long time, watching the sky, not saying a word. I could feel the dampness through my s.h.i.+rt, smell the clean air. Something I like about Joey is that she's okay with being quiet. For some reason - the blue sky, the puffy clouds, the damp earth beneath my back - I felt like a little kid again.
”Look!” I said to Joey, pointing up. ”I see a chicken.”
Joey laughed. ”That's a turkey.” She tilted her head. ”Or is it a dinosaur?”
The clouds were like s.h.i.+fting wisps of smoke, changing right above our heads. ”Now I see a flying turtle.” Click. Click. ”No, wait. It's a giant hand.”
”Sorry to tell you, but your giant hand is a fish with one fin.”
”Do you see a dragon now?” I asked.
”No, but I see a dragonfly,” she said. Click, click.
”Looks more like corkscrew pasta to me,” I told her.
”Only someone who likes to cook as much as you would see a kind of noodle in the sky.” Joey giggled. She moved her head sideways, looking at the cloud from different angles. ”The dragonfly looks kind of like a frog on skis.”
”I wondered how long it would take you to see a frog,” I said, snapping a bunch more shots.
”Who knew there were so many different kinds of clouds? Now I see the state of Minnesota, a giant letter H, and a hyphen.”
”A hyphen? Duck, only you would find punctuation in a cloud,” I said, and Joey cracked up. ”Do you think you're going to be a writer when you grow up?”
”Um-m-mm,” Joey said, shrugging her shoulders. ”How should I know?”
”Well, I definitely see you as a writer. A writer who uses lots of hyphens. In Minnesota.” Joey grinned, and her two front teeth stuck out.
We stretched out side by side. I could hear the wind in the leaves and my own breath. It felt good to do nothing but watch clouds.
”Hey, we should start calling you Zoey,” I said out of the blue.
Joey leaned up and looked over at me, squinting. ”Why?”
”I don't know. Why not? Because Zoey sounds like a writer's name. Because I'm feeling . . . I don't know . . . wild and weird and wonderful today, I think, I mean, I don't know what I'm feeling, actually.”
Joey bolted up. ”Okay, now you're starting to freak me out because you sound like Alex. The not-making-sense part, I mean.”
”Don't worry, Duck. I'm still me,” I a.s.sured her. But inside I felt like a different me. All fluttery and heart-skippy and breathless.
”So you're not going to stop wearing socks, are you? Or draw black lines around your eyes and rub perfume on yourself from samples in magazines and start going all gaga for boys?”
”NO! Of course not!” I told her.
”Good. Because I can only handle one weird sister at a time.”
The state of Minnesota had floated away and the capital H looked like a number 4 now. The rest of the sky was filled with flying saucer clouds.
”Did you know if you see a fish in the clouds, it's supposed to mean that you're going to be rich?”
”I see a fis.h.!.+”
”You do not.”