The Candy Smash Read online

  She looked at Mrs. Overton's desk. There was one long, thin drawer in the center and three deep drawers on each side. Jessie wondered whether the drawers were locked. She wondered which drawer was most likely to hold a secret.

  Her heart started to beat faster. Her dad did this kind of thing all the time, right? When he told his stories—of classified documents and uncovered clues and secret meetings with sources—he never mentioned being nervous.

  She reached her hand toward the top desk drawer.

  "What are you doing?"

  Jessie's hand jumped back as if bitten by a snake and disappeared behind her back. David Kirkorian stood in the doorway, buried inside his winter coat, woolen hat, and bulky gloves.

  "Nothing!" said Jessie. "I forgot my social studies notebook!" This was the excuse she had planned ahead of time, and she had in fact "accidentally" left her notebook in her desk.

  "So why are you looking in Mrs. Overton's desk?" David walked up to her and pulled off his hat. "She doesn't keep our notebooks in her desk."

  "Why are you even here?" asked Jessie. Was David going to report her to the principal?

  "I saw you walk back into the school, and I thought maybe you needed help with something." He took off his gloves and stuck them under his arm. It was warm in the classroom, and his face was beginning to turn bright red with the heat.

  "I don't need help," said Jessie. And she didn't. At least not from David Kirkorian, of all people!

  He looked at her, then at the wall, then back at her. "I won't tell, Jessie," he whispered. "I'll keep your secret."

  "There is no secret!" shouted Jessie. She hurried past him, grabbed her social studies notebook from her desk, and ran out of the room.

  When Megan came over to her house, Jessie still felt jumpy. And she still didn't know what her frontpage story would be.

  "Do you think I can just say that it's Mrs. Overton who's giving out the candy, since it obviously is?" asked Jessie. She and Megan were in the basement, making their cards. Valentine's Day was just five days away, and Jessie was worried about getting all twenty-six valentines done in time. Another deadline! There was so much pressure in fourth grade!

  "Isn't that against the law?" asked Megan. "I mean, if it turns out not to be true?" Megan had the messy idea of filling her envelopes with confetti, so she was busy cutting up tissue paper.

  "Yeah," said Jessie glumly. It was called libel, and you could go to jail for it. "But who else could it be?" Jessie was decorating the edges of her heartshaped valentines with little glue-on jewels, following a strict pattern—red, silver, purple, silver.

  "You never know!" said Megan, and she tossed a handful of confetti into the air so that it rained down on the table.

  Jessie brushed the confetti off her side, glad that it hadn't landed in any glue. "Well, if I can't write about the candy hearts, what am I supposed to write about on the front page of my newspaper?"

  "You should write about how we're not allowed to include any candy in our class valentines this year," Megan said. It was a new rule, and all the kids were against it. She reached for a sheet of pink construction paper and started to cut out a heart. "It's un-American!" Megan's uncle owned a candy factory, so Jessie could understand why she'd be upset.

  "That's not a very interesting story," said Jessie. Sure, everyone in 4-O was mad about the new rule, but there was nothing to investigate. Candy was bad for your teeth, and grownups cared more about healthy teeth than they did about a kid's happiness. End of story.

  "Then we should make a story!" said Megan. "We should have a protest. Sign a petition. No! A sit-down strike! We should all refuse to do our homework until that rule is changed!"

  Not do homework? Jessie stared at Megan. That sounded completely crazy to her.

  "Bad idea," she said. "I need to uncover a secret."

  Megan stopped cutting her paper and looked at Jessie. "That doesn't sound very nice. If someone has a secret, they probably don't want you printing it all over the front page of a newspaper."

  "Secrets are bad," Jessie said, thinking of the big chemical company and the lying senator. Clearly Megan didn't understand what investigative reporting was all about.

  "Some secrets are nice," said Megan, smiling.

  There was a clomping sound overhead, and then the door to the basement squeaked open. "Hey, Jess, it's almost dinner," said Evan, but instead of closing the door and going back upstairs, he continued down the steps and wandered over to the table where they were working. "My mom says you can stay, if you want to," said Evan, not even looking at Megan. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the pile of shredded tissue paper.

  Megan grabbed two fistfuls of the confetti and held them up to her head. "It's my new hairdo! Do you like it?"

  Evan burst out laughing. Then he grabbed a fistful and held the confetti paper up to his chin. "Do you like my beard?" he asked in a deep voice, and Megan practically fell off her chair, she laughed so hard. Jessie really didn't get what was so funny.

  "You guys are weird," she said, bending over her valentine and pressing the last jewel into place. But she wasn't listening to them anymore. She was thinking about the secret in Mrs. Overton's desk drawer.

  The next morning an even bigger secret appeared. It popped up in—of all places—the girls' bathroom.

  To Jessie, the girls' bathroom was a scary place. Things happened in the bathroom, things that teachers never knew about. Words were whispered, graffiti written, rules broken, trash dumped, water left running, hands left unwashed, noses picked, bodies shoved, names called—anything could happen in the bathroom, because there were no teachers watching. Ever. Jessie had never once seen a teacher enter the girls' bathroom.

  For the most part, Jessie avoided the bathroom. She took care of her business at home and, when necessary, in the private bathroom in the nurse's office. But this year, Mrs. Graham had started to "encourage" her to use the girls' bathroom in the hall. At first, Jessie had politely declined, but after a few weeks, it stopped being an offer, and Jessie had to "adapt and evolve," as her mother would say, to this new way of doing things.

  Jessie pushed open the old, scarred wooden door of the bathroom and stuck her head in. She didn't mind the bathroom when it was empty, and she didn't mind it when it was jam-packed. But if there were just a few girls in there—especially any of the mean girls from her class last year or the scary big fifth-graders who looked like they were practically teenagers—she would duck back out and look at the artwork in the hallway until the bathroom emptied out.

  This morning, the bathroom was empty. Jessie hurried to the only stall she ever used, the second-to-last one in the row, and quickly sat down to pee. She liked this stall because the lock worked and because most kids never used it. She had observed this: kids either liked the first two stalls closest to the door or the large, handicapped stall that was like having a room all to yourself. But no one ever chose the second-to-last stall, and that's why Jessie decided it was the safest one of all.

  Today, when she sat down, she noticed something new, right in front of her face, written on the door in black ink.

  The first thing she thought was that Megan's initials were M.M., but she could tell that Megan hadn't written the letters because Megan always drew curlicues at the ends of her Ms, and these Ms were straight up and down.

  The second thing she thought was that E and T were Evan's initials.

  Of course, it was a big school with a lot of kids, and all the grades used this bathroom. Maybe M.M. and E.T. were fifth-graders. That made more sense. Older kids did bad things, like writing on bathroom doors.

  When Jessie finished, she left the stall to wash her hands. And then she forgot all about the initials because back in the classroom they were creating models of working lungs using soda bottles and balloons, and Jessie loved making stuff like that.

  But later in the morning, when Megan twisted around in her seat to talk to Tessa while Mrs. Overton was giving a math lesson on decimals, Mrs. Overton
said, "Megan Moriarity, eyes up front, please!" And Jessie thought again about those initials and what they might mean.

  It was like a math equation with symbols:

  if

  M.M. = Megan Moriarty

  and

  E.T. = Evan Treski

  and

  a heart = love,

  then

  M.M. + E.T. inside a heart =

  Megan Moriarty loves Evan Treski.

  But what did that mean?

  Jessie decided to go straight to the primary source.

  Chapter 5

  Love Stuff

  assonance (n) a poetic technique in which the middle sound of a word (usually a vowel) is repeated in words that are next to the word or near it, such as silly little chimps

  Evan was grabbing a plastic spoon at the utensil table in the cafeteria when he saw Jessie walk up to Megan, who was near the front of the line. It was noisy in the cafeteria, the way it usually was, but Evan was close enough to hear Jessie's voice, which was always loud and clear.

  "Do you love Evan?"

  Evan's head snapped in the direction of Jessie's voice. He saw Megan's back stiffen and her face turn bright red. The dozen or so kids closest in line straightened up and turned their full attention to Jessie and Megan. Tessa squealed, her hands flying to her mouth. Scott Spencer started laughing, and several of the boys erupted in a chorus of "Oooh."

  Evan felt his face flame and his stomach drop. He wanted to run out of the cafeteria.

  Salley Knight, who was standing right behind Megan, said, "You're not supposed to say something like that!"

  "Why not?" Jessie asked, still talking in her usual loud way.

  "Because..." Salley threw her hands up, shaking her head.

  Evan walked quickly back to his assigned seat at his lunch table, careful to keep his eyes down. The kids at the table hadn't heard what Jessie had said, but by the end of lunch, the news had traveled up and down the aisles. There were lots of jokes about kissing. Malik turned two soggy french fries into lips and squeezed them open and closed while making loud smooching noises. A bunch of girls started to sing "My Heart Will Go On," so loudly that the cafeteria ladies told the whole class that they were the worst group of the day and were in danger of losing recess. Even that didn't stop the snickering and poking. Evan wished the floor would swallow him whole.

  When the doors to the playground were finally opened and the horde of noisy fourth-graders ran outside, Evan stayed behind and cornered Jessie at the trash can.

  "What are you doing? How come you said that?" He wanted to shake her, as if that would make her understand what she'd done.

  "Said what?" asked Jessie.

  Evan dropped his voice to a dangerous whisper. "That Megan and me are in love."

  "I did not say that!"

  "Well, that's what everyone is saying now. What's with you, Jess? Come on! Even you—"

  "All I did was ask a simple question. All I did was ask Megan if she loves you because that's what it says in the girls' bathroom."

  Evan felt his stomach drop to his knees for the second time that day. He tried to ask Jessie what she meant, but it was as if he'd forgotten how his tongue worked. It just lay there in his mouth, unable to form words.

  "C'mon! Line up!" shouted one of the cafeteria ladies to the last few stragglers busing their trays and throwing out their trash.

  Evan placed both hands on Jessie's shoulders and bent his head down close to hers. In a whisper, he asked, "What does it say in the girls' bathroom?"

  Jessie put her hands together, both thumbs meeting in a downward-facing point to form a perfect heart. "M.M. plus E.T.," she said.

  Evan felt another wave of heat rise up from his shirt collar. The noise of the cafeteria swirled around him.

  "Did Megan write that ... that thing in the bathroom?" Evan asked.

  "No. I don't think so. I don't know! How am I supposed to know?"

  "Can you find out?"

  "Why?" asked Jessie. "What is it with all this love stuff?"

  Evan again had the feeling of wanting to shake Jessie. Why didn't she understand things that everyone else did? "Just find out, would ya? Ask her. And then tell me. But don't tell her I asked you to find out. And don't tell anyone else. Swear it!"

  Evan headed for the playground, wanting to shake off this almost-sick feeling. He pushed open the door and shouted, "Hey!" as Ryan ran by on the blacktop. "Wait for me!"

  He could count on Jessie to find out the answer, but how long would that take? Valentine's Day was just four days away, and Evan needed answers.

  Chapter 6

  Exclusive

  exclusive (n) a story that is reported by only one newspaper because that newspaper is the only one with the information

  Jessie walked home alone that afternoon. It was hard work being around other people, particularly kids in her grade. There were so many things to figure out. She had to watch their faces closely and listen hard to the way they talked. Did their eyes open wide? Did they look down at the ground? Did they whisper? Or get loud? It was like trying to solve a math problem that never ended.

  Take, for example, what had happened on the playground after lunch.

  After promising Evan to find out who drew the heart on the bathroom wall, Jessie had wandered outside in search of Megan.

  She found her at the swings, but when Jessie came close, Megan walked away. Jessie tried to follow her, but Megan kept moving, first to the monkey bars and then the slide and then the picnic tables.

  Finally, Salley came up to Jessie and said, "Megan told me to tell you that she doesn't want to talk to you right now because she's really mad and she doesn't want to say something she'll regret later."

  "Why is she mad?" asked Jessie. "I just asked a question."

  Salley shook her head and said, "You're not supposed to ask about stuff like that. Not out loud where everyone can hear you. No one says that stuff out loud. Obviously. You only talk about it late at night at a slumber party after all the lights are out and everyone's half asleep."

  But Jessie had never been to a slumber party, so she didn't know about that.

  "Why? Is it some kind of secret?"

  Salley looked at her sideways, clearly puzzled. "Well, yeah. That's why everyone's so interested. Everyone wants to know who likes who."

  "Everyone?" said Jessie. "Does everyone like someone?"

  "Pretty much," said Salley. "I mean, it's fourth grade. We're not little kids anymore."

  But Jessie didn't understand what it meant to like someone in that way. And when she tried to smile and wave at Megan from across the playground—which she knew was the right way to tell someone "I want to be friends with you"—Megan wouldn't look at her.

  Walking home after school, Jessie got to thinking. If what Salley said was true—that everyone liked someone and it was all a big secret—then here was a hot topic that 4-O was interested in. She would need to collect data, of course. In just four days! But when she did, she would have a newspaper article that everyone would want to read.

  Jessie imagined the headline of her front-page story:

  Who Likes Who—A 4-O Forum Exclusive!

  Chapter 7

  Proud Words

  slant rhyme (n) two words that have the same final consonant sound (such as "stopped" and "wept") or two words with the same middle vowel sound (such as "barn" and "yard"). They sound almost like rhyming words, but not quite.

  The plan had been to go to Ryan's house and shoot hoops, but then Evan suggested they walk uptown to get slices of pizza. So they'd all called their mothers using the school office phone, and now they were walking up the hill to Town House, which didn't have the best pizza in town, but it was the closest.

  Evan was dribbling the ball as they walked, and the bounce of the ball seemed to keep time to the words that kept drumming in his head: "nudgers and shovers in spite of ourselves." The words made a steady beat that sounded right with the pounding of the basketball on the frozen pavement
. And "nudgers" and "shovers" together was an example of slant rhyme, which Evan thought was pretty neat.

  Just as they reached the door of the pizza shop, Ryan said, "Hey, look!" and elbowed Evan so hard that Evan half stumbled in mid-dribble. When he looked up, he saw Megan and her mom walking right toward them. The ball bounced out of his reach and went rolling into the street. There was a lot of afternoon traffic, and several cars had to jam on their brakes to avoid running over the ball. Evan waited until everyone had stopped and then sprinted across the street to grab the ball, angry at it the way a mother would be mad at a kid for running into the street without first looking both ways. Mostly, though, he was embarrassed. Embarrassed to be making such a scene in the middle of town, embarrassed that he'd flubbed his dribble in front of Megan, and embarrassed that his friends had seen the whole thing.

  When he got back to the curb, Megan and her mom were gone, but Paul and Ryan were laughing so hard, they'd sat down on the bench outside of Town House. Adam wasn't laughing, but he hadn't offered to help Evan, either.

  "Oooh, Megan!" said Paul, clasping his hands and pressing them to his heart. "I love you! I love you! I love you! Ooops! I dropped my basketball. Excuse me!"

  "No, no, it's like this," said Ryan, who could barely get the words out of his mouth because he was laughing so much. "Oh, Megan! When you're around, my hands turn to Jell-O!" and he started jiggling his hands in the air.

  "Just shut up, would you?" said Evan, and he pulled back the arm that was loaded with the basketball and looked like he might fire it right at their heads.