Author's Note: Let me know what you think!
I walked up to the tree house and rolled my eyes. It was the end of summer and I had tons of schoolwork I had to make up from the year before. According to Mrs. Crawlie (aka Crotchy Bitch) if I didn't have the work in by the first day of school, I'd be held back. Great.
"Val, get your ass up here!" Teddy shouted down from the tree house. I smiled at my nickname. It was Val, for a pretty weird reason. My real name is Lilly Thatcher, and my mom named me that because she loves the flowers Lily of the Valley. When I told the boys that, they started calling me Valley Girl, and soon they just shortened it to Val.
"Teddy chill your ball sack, I'm coming!" I held on to my bag full of schoolwork and began climbing the ladder. I did the secret knock but the door opened when I was halfway finished it. They already knew it was me and didn't really need to hear the knock to prove it.
"Why you got that bag?" Chris asked me. I rolled my eyes again.
"School work. If I don't hand it in I can kiss eighth grade goodbye and it's back to seventh grade I go!" I told him in a sarcastically cheery way. He patted my back.
"I'll help you if you want." Gordie said, not looking up from his Mighty Mouse comic. I nodded even though he couldn't see me do it.
"Teddy, deal. Come on man," Chris said to Teddy who had the deck of cards in his hands. He started flipping them around.
"Can I join?" I asked. Teddy began dealing and gave me some cards and we started a game.
I smiled at my deck, knowing I couldn't lose…until Teddy put his cards down and smiled.
"Fuck. Whatever, I'm out." I gave him back my cards and spun around on my ass to face Gordie. "What edition is that?" I asked him about the comic. Without looking up he said,
"The fourteenth. I'm trying to read them in order." He said this very solemnly. Something was wrong. He was upset about something for sure. I crawled over to him and took a seat by his side.
"What's wrong Gordo?" I asked, cutely, and smiled at him. I had just gotten my braces off so I took every chance I got to smile. And right now, Gordie needed a smile.
"Nothing, Val. Nothing's wrong." Yeah right, I thought. Something's up and I was going to find out.
"Gordie," I said sweetly and then jumped on top of him, tackling him he dropped his comic and started trying to push me off. "Tell me what's wrong!"
"No! Get off!" He cried, as Teddy and Chris laughed their heads off.
"Get 'em Val!" Teddy shouted, and howled in laughter. Chris laughed and dropped his cards.
"No! I'm not getting off until you tell me what's wrong!" I cried pushing Gordie hard down on the floor.
"This is considered rape, get the fuck off me!" Gordie screamed, a little laughter in his cry. I sighed, and rolled off of Gordie.
"Sorry, man…but could you just tell me what's wrong?" I begged, getting on my knees and putting my hands together like I was praying. He rolled his eyes.
"You'll laugh." He said, picking up his comic and burying his face in it again. I took the comic out of his hands. Chris picked up his cards again and glanced over at me, and I winked.
"Promise I won't. Cross my heart. Pinky swear! Tell me!" I was begging him, at his feet. He smiled at me.
"Fine…" He took a deep breath, and looked over at Teddy and Chris who looked down at their cards as soon as he looked over. He motioned for me to come over to him and he went to my ear to whisper.
"I like Janie Wilson." He said, very quietly. I jumped back.
"You like Janie Wilson!" I shouted, clamping my mouth shut as soon as I screamed it. "Whoops…" Teddy began cracking up and Chris giggled a little bit.
"Ha! Yeah right! Like you'll ever get that piece of work. She's the hottest thing around!" Teddy smirked. Gordie smacked his head and shook it. I glared at Teddy. "Well…besides you, of course, Val." He said, meaningfully. I shook my head with a sarcastic grin.
"Val!" Gordie said. "You guys promised not to laugh!" he groaned. Teddy continued to laugh.
"Val was the only one who promised not to laugh. We didn't say anything!" Chris said, giggling a little more. Gordie rolled his eyes and kept reading.
I looked over at Chris. He was so calm and collected. I had no idea how he could stand hanging out with the four of us (that included Vern). Speaking of Vern, about two seconds after that, we heard someone scream "Lemme in, guys!"
"Vern learn the fucking secret knock already, this is getting ridiculous." I shouted back. Chris smiled at me. He was always so cool and somewhat mysterious about things. I kinda liked that about him and through all the eight years I've known him, I'm noticing that now.
"Shut up, Val, and just let me in!" Vern shouted.
"You didn't say the magic word!" I smiled at Teddy.
"Please?" Vern was getting impatient.
"That's not it! I always thought of the magic word being: Val is amazing and I love her more than life!" I cracked up.
"That's ten words, Val." Chris said, coolly. I rolled my eyes.
"And that's why I failed math…" I said. Vern banged harder on the door.
"Just let me in!" He begged. I laughed and opened the latch on the door. Vern came running up.
"Hey guys! Did any of you see the moving trucks next to Val's house this morning?" he asked, fixing himself up next to me. I nodded at him.
"Yeah, a new family moved in. They look like assholes. A girl our age moved in there too, and she looks like a total bitch." I explained. Teddy's eyes lit up.
"That's my kind of woman!" he smiled. I rolled my eyes at him.
"No seriously, she looks like a bitch. You really wouldn't like her," I assured him. But the truth was, she was really pretty. And I really thought the guys would like her...that meant she must stay away.
"Actually, I saw her this morning and she looked kind of nice." Gordie said. He lives across the street from me. I gritted my teeth at him.
"Gordie…shut the fuck up." I said. He looked at me like 'what?' and I just glared. "I guess she looked okay…but I don't think she'd get along with us too well." I was the girl in this group, and if this girl was gonna steal my friends, I wouldn't be too happy. She was totally pretty and all the guys would fall for her…then they would ignore me. I hoped that wasn't the truth, I had a little more faith in my friends than that. But, I could never be too sure. This new girl was pretty. What were the odds she was nice though? I smirked to myself.
"I thought she was kinda pretty." Gordie said. I just sighed.
"Whatever," I said, taking one of the comics from the stack that Gordie had. I opened it and leaned against the wall and read it.
"You seem really reluctant for us to be hanging with her." Chris said, putting down some of his cards. "SUCK IT, TEDDY!" He grabbed the deck and Teddy growled at him.
"Fuck you, Chambers." Teddy said, pushing the cards away. "I don't wanna play no more." He leaned back against the wall in front of me. Chris sat next to me.
"Well anyway, they're really rich or something." Vern added, and I just pushed the comic closer to my face. I really didn't give a shit about this girl. She was going to make me lose my friends, I could feel it. My instincts are usually correct. I knew that Vern was going to go nuts when they came out with cherry flavored pez, and I knew that Teddy was going to fail math last year. (somehow that last one wasn't so hard to figure out, but you get the point) And I knew this girl, although I've never said two words to her, would ruin my friendship. If I know anything in my stupid mind, it's to trust my instincts.
~nicole