CHAPTER 19: Progress

"You go ahead! I'll be there, I promise!" Rodrick yelled back as he rushed out of the classroom right after Spanish class.

I leaned on the wall beside the door, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Relax, I thought. No need to get mad. I opened my eyes again and walked to my locker.

Claire appeared beside me. "What's up?" she asked.

"Nothing. Just goin' to get my things from the locker," I replied. Claire nodded. She was silent until we reached my locker where I did my usual load-and-unload routine.

"Great! No plans today, so let's go to the mall!" she said with her signature excited voice.

"Um… Sorry. I actually have plans today," I replied. "Aside from homework."

"Ooooh…" she said, smiling as if she just found out that I was going to do something un-April-like. "Is it a date?"

"What–no!" I closed my locker. "It's Wednesday. My partner and I agreed to start working on our English project today," I explained.

We started walking. "So it's like a study date with Rodrick, huh?" she said, raising both of her eyebrows repeatedly.

I glared at her. "It's not a date. It's a project."

"Whatever, April."

"FYI, the words Rodrick and date don't go together. That's just disgusting," I said as we passed by Claire's locker. She didn't load and unload (Maybe she's done it before she found me after class). Instead, she just shrugged at what I said and we continued walking. "Don't you have plans with Ethan today?" I asked, just to change the topic.

"Hmm… Not today. I can just call him maybe, so we can hang out while you do you're 'project'." She did the quote-unquote sign with her fingers while saying 'project'.

I rolled my eyes at her. "Whatever. I'll go ahead. See you later." I kept walking after saying that, while she stopped. She pulled out her phone and waved at me before holding it against her ear. It bet she was calling Ethan.

. . . . . . . . . .

I took a bag of chips from the pantry, and then headed upstairs to my room. Since Rodrick wasn't there yet, I decided to do my Math and History homework first.

When I finished – and it didn't take me long to do so since the homework wasn't that hard – I looked out the window to see if Rodrick had arrived at my house. Well, he hadn't. But from where I am, I could see his van parked in front of his house.

I ran downstairs to look for mom's telephone book. I had to make sure that my guess was right before I punch Rodrick in the face tomorrow morning. The telephone book was right under the telephone. I wondered why mom would put it there when there are a lot of drawers in the house. Anyway, the small book had letters on its side so I opened it to the letter H.

There were a lot of scribbles. I tried to look for the word Heffley; but found Heffleys instead. And so I dialed the number written below that. After a few rings, Mrs. Heffley's voice came up. "Hello?"

"Um. Hello, Mrs. Heffley. It's April," I said.

"Oh hi, April! Why did you call?" she replied kindly.

"I would just like to ask if Rodrick's home?"

"Why, yes! He picked up Greg today. Hold on, I'll get him–" she said. My hunch was right. I knew it—Rodrick was home all this time and he didn't even bother to show up on my doorstep. I groaned silently while hearing faint and muffled voices from the other line:

"Greg! Could you please call Rodrick?"

"Yeah, mom! Wait a sec!" a boy's voice shouted back. It was Greg. "He's not in his room!"

"Are you sure? Isn't he home already?"

"I don't know!" Then a door slammed shut.

A few moments after, I heard Mrs. Heffley speak up again through the phone. "I'm very sorry, April. Rodrick's not here. He must have gone somewhere without telling me…" She was trying to steady her voice, but she sounded angry at Rodrick and worried for him at the same time.

"It's fine, Mrs. Heffley. Thanks anyway," I said.

"You're welcome, dear. And I'll tell him you called," she said. Then we hung up after saying good bye.

I went back to my room and took out the abridged version of Les Miserables which Rodrick and I bought at the book store yesterday. Yeah, he was with me after school so he could get his own copy too. And now, when he's certainly required to be present, he has sneaked out to go to who-knows-where.

While reading, I couldn't help but glance at the clock. Soon enough, my eyes felt so heavy that I had to close them. I was only awakened a few hours later by the sound of knocking and my mom's voice telling me to go down for dinner.

. . . . . . . . . .

I didn't see Rodrick in any of the morning classes the next day. A part of me thought that it was a good thing because I didn't have to get stressed very early. But it was also a bad thing because I didn't get the chance to hit him in the face (even though my guess yesterday – that he was just chilling in his house – was apparently incorrect).

After finishing my lunch, I went straight to the library to read. It already became a habit of mine to do this every day. My friends would tell me, "Take a break, April." But in my defense, I do take breaks. That's why half of my lunch is spent for this project and half is spent for eating and bonding with them.

When I got to the library, my usual spot was occupied. Sitting on the chair I always sat on when reading was the person I wanted to punch so bad this morning. His chin was resting on top of the table and his arms were extended across while he lazily held and read his own copy of the abridged version of Les Miserables.

I remained standing there, looking around to see if there was an empty spot (and by empty spot I mean a spot where I could have an entire table to myself). Luckily, there were 3 more close by, but they were all behind where Rodrick was sitting. He would definitely see me if I try to walk past him, and it would be pointless to say that I don't want to get near him in the library when I was the one who told him a few days ago that he's welcomed to visit me during lunch to contribute to the project. And the only reason why I was thinking twice if I'd sit away from him or not was because I was angry at him for ditching me yesterday. Already regretting my decision, I half-heartedly walked closer, settled my things on the table, and sat on the chair across him.

Still holding the open book and not taking his eyes off of it, he pulled back his arms and wore a smirk on his face. I didn't say a word as I took out a notebook, a pen, and my book. I started reading from where I left off when he sighed heavily and said, "It sure took you a long time to decide whether to sit here or not."

I didn't say anything. I didn't even look at him. Instead, I continued to read and take down some important details of the chapter. When he realized I wasn't answering, he leaned closer to me. "Are you mad at me?" he asked, and didn't get a reply. He leaned back again, saying, "I got busy yesterday. Picked up Greg from school…" He looked at me and continued, "And then I went somewhere, and… I don't think you want to know the details 'bout that." I kept reading, pretending not to listen to him while he continued his monologue. "I got home pretty late only to be lectured by Susan. It was so freaking annoying."

It's more freaking annoying to wait for more than four hours, my mind replied, but the words didn't come out of my mouth.

"And your silent treatment is giving me a headache!" He groaned. The librarian glared at him, and he ignored her. He leaned forward again and whispered in the most irritating tone ever, "Come on, Prescott. I know you've got some words blabbering at the tip of your tongue."

I kept my mouth shut. He finally gave up and resumed reading. I glanced at the book and noticed that the pages he had read were almost as thick as the pages I've read. Beside his arm was a small pile of scratch papers with scribbles and ugly drawings that I didn't pay attention to 'til now.

"Where were you this morning?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the book.

"Here," he replied ignorantly.

"Don't lie."

"Not this time, Ms. Human Lie Detector."

I looked at him. "You mean you skipped classes to read Les Miserables?"

"Yeah."

I raised my eyebrow. "So Rodrick Heffley skips all morning classes to read Les Miserables? Yeah right. And I stabbed myself with a stick," I said with utmost sarcasm.

"That," he said, looking at me, "would definitely be worth seeing! Do it again."

I gave him the death stare, thinking of different ways to kill him (which I couldn't possibly do in real life of course, unless I wanted to go to jail). He stared back, a smile creeping across his face. He half-closed the book and tucked a finger in the middle so he'd open it to the same page later. Our glaring contest went on for a few more minutes.

"Alright you win," I said, breaking off at the 4th minute. I could have won, but I had to end it because we were wasting time. Besides, I couldn't stare at his eyes any longer.

"You can't beat the champ." He snickered and re-opened the book to read. My eyes drifted back to my book as well. "My house tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah," I answered. "If you ditch me again, I'll tell Mr. Martins to get me a new partner."

"Whatever." He waved his hand in the air. And we read in silence 'til lunch break was over.

. . . . . . . . . .

I rang the doorbell of the Heffley Residence the next day after school. The door opened and Greg's face came to view. "Hello Greg," I greeted.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Uh… I have to work on an assignment with Rodrick," I said. He didn't reply. "Is he here?"

"Yeah…" he said slowly, frowning in confusion. "I think he's in his room." He opened the door wider so I could come in.

I stepped inside and looked around as if I hadn't been here before. "Is your mom here?"

Greg closed the door. "Nope. She took Manny out." He went past me and I followed him to the living room. "Are you and Rodrick… dating?" he asked out of the blue.

"Ew, no." I shook my head repeatedly. "Why'd you ask that?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. Just making sure."

"Well, we're not," I said.

"Good." He sighed. "Because I couldn't imagine Rodrick with a girlfriend." We entered the living room where Rowley was seated on the couch, holding a video game controller. He waved at me.

I smiled and turned back to Greg. "Where's Rodrick's room?"

"Basement," he replied, grabbing his video game controller and slumping next to Rowley. They unpaused the game and started pressing the buttons violently. I turned away and looked for a door to the basement.

My vague memory of the house miraculously helped me find it. I twisted the knob and pushed the door open. Inside was a stairway leading to another door. It was so dusty that it didn't seem like an actual person sleeps down there. "Greg, are you sure Rodrick's room is in the basement?"

"What–yeah," he replied, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the game they were playing. "Just go straight downstairs."

"Okay," I said, mostly to myself because I was pretty sure Greg didn't hear me. I started climbing down the staircase.

When I reached the bottom, I found myself face to face with a closed door. It had a black poster with an ugly drawing of a white skull and two crossed bones. Below the image, the words KEAP OUT! were scrawled in white ink.

Yep, this is definitely Rodrick's room, I thought. I knocked but no one answered. I knocked again, this time calling his name. Still no answer. So I took my chances; I opened the door, and stepped inside.

It was probably the WORST decision of my life. As soon as I entered the room, my eyes and nose and my other senses became eternally damaged. I was paralyzed on the spot. It was extremely dirty and stinky that you could not unsee and unsmell it for like a month. Seriously, it was like Big Foot invaded and DIED in Rodrick's room.

"Hey! Rodrick!" I called, but he still had no idea I just entered his territory. He was wearing his headphones–probably listening to some loud music because he couldn't hear me and he kept bobbing his head–and was standing in front of his closet, topless and throwing over some t-shirts, looking for something to wear. After finally choosing a black shirt and putting it on, he turned and saw me standing in the middle of the room with my hands covering my nose and mouth. And then his eyes were on fire.

He took off his headphones and tossed it to the bed. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" he yelled, running towards me and pushing me to the door.

Still not removing my hands (because I thought the air might be toxic), I yelled back, "WAIT–UGH, STOP! WE HAVE WORK TO DO FOR ENGLISH!"

He stopped abruptly and looked down on his shoes. "Damn it! I forgot about that… But you can't just barge in here! You should have at least knocked on the door. Didn't you see the sign?!"

"I saw it and I did knock!" I said, obliviously pulling my hands away from my face and crossing my arms in front of me. "Now you know what it feels like to have someone invade your privacy." Annoyed and irritated, Rodrick shook and scratched his head. He groaned then walked back and threw himself onto his bed. Soon enough, the smell started stinging my nose again. "OL' MOTHER OF KRAB DONKEYS WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT FREAKING SMELL?!"

"Shut up. I don't smell anything," he said as he covered his eyes with his arm.

"Did something die in here?" I asked, and he snorted. "Seriously, you should clean this stinkhole. And your van too. It's disgusting–"

"Arghhh!" He furiously rubbed his face with his hands. "Get out," he said, pointing to the door.

"I most definitely will!" I walked to the door. "Get up. Let's work in the living room or kitchen or something… Oh and by the way, 'keep' is spelled as K-E-E-P, not K-E-A-P."

"Get. Out. Of. My. Room."

I did. I went back upstairs, walked to the living room, and breathed in the air. "Aaah. Fresh. Air." I muttered.

"Forgot to warn you about that," Greg said. "That's why there's a door when you reach the bottom of the stairs. Not like in other houses." They were still playing the game. On the screen, it read Twisted Wizard 2.

I sat on the vacant chair beside the couch and waited. Soon enough, I heard a door slam and saw Rodrick walking past the living room, ignoring us. He was wearing a jacket and was twirling keys around his finger. "Where are you going?" I asked.

"Out."

"But we have work to do," I said. He shrugged and casually walked to the door. I followed him. Suddenly, the phone rang.

Everyone stopped and stared at it for a moment. Then Rodrick elected to ignore it. He opened the door and stepped outside. Greg half-heartedly paused the game, got up, and answered the phone. I leaned on the door jamb, with my arms crossed, and thought of what to do next. Should I go home? Or should I convince Rodrick to stay so we could actually make progress? But to be honest, I was getting pretty tired of him purposely forgetting our meetings and ditching me every time.

Greg ran past me, carrying the cordless phone, and called his brother's attention from their front porch. "Rodrick! It's mom! She wants to talk to you."

Rodrick was just opening the door of his van when Greg called him. He sighed, trudged back to the house, and grabbed the phone from Greg. His younger brother glared at him and then went back to play the game with Rowley, while I waited for him to finish talking with his mother.

He paced back and forth in their foyer. "What now?… But mom… Are you serious?… No way. Not gonna happen…NO. I'm not going to let… Ugh, fine… Yeah. Yeah, okay." He hung up and placed the phone back on its holder.

"I'm going home," I said, pushing myself from the jamb.

"Wait!" he said, just when I was about to step outside. I turned back to him and hoped that he would say Hey let's start working on this project!

"Do you have 5 bucks?" he asked.

"No, and goodbye Rodrick." I walked outside and started climbing down the stairs of the front porch.

"Wait!" He must have followed me because next think I knew, his hand was on my arm. I stared at it for a while and then looked up at Rodrick. I didn't say anything. He let go, ruffled his hair, and started talking really fast. "So here's the thing, that was Susan on the phone and she was telling me to give Greg drum lessons! But heck no! I wouldn't do that–do you think I would do that?! No! So I've got this brilliant plan. Just give me 5 bucks please."

"No, I'm going home so I could start working on the project that you don't even care about. I'll probably tell Mr. Martins about my progress on Monday–"

"Fine, fine. Let's work on the project now!" He went behind me, placed his hands on my shoulders, and started pushing me towards the house. When we reached the middle of the foyer, he stopped, stood in front of me, and whispered, "Please, just 5 bucks. Please?"

I rolled my eyes, opened my messenger bag, fished out my wallet, and started pulling a 5-dollar bill. But before I could even take the entire thing out, Rodrick grabbed it and ran to the living room.

"You're welcome!" I shouted sarcastically, and then followed him while putting my wallet back in my bag.

He stood between the two kids and the television. "Get out of the way, Rodrick!" Greg said while he and Rowley scooted to see the game they're playing.

"So twerps," he started. Greg gave up and paused the game. "Mom told me to teach you how to play the drums."

"Uh… You wouldn't even let us touch them," Greg said.

"Exactly!" Rodrick pointed at his little brother. "So here's the deal. You tell her that I gave you and your baby hippo friend here some pretty rockin' drum lessons, in exchange for 5 bucks." He winked and smiled at Greg. Wow… that was a brilliantly lame plan.

"But that's like lying," Rowley said. "Joshie said lying is bad."

Greg looked at his friend weirdly and then said to Rodrick, "What makes you think you can bribe me?"

"Come on, lil bro," he said, as convincing and as smooth as he could. "You're gonna wait for Mom Bucks when you got real bucks right here." He showed the dollar bill in front of the two younger boys.

Greg shook his head. "No thanks. Could we play our game now?"

"It could help you buy anything you want, by the way," Rodrick said, as if you could buy a video game with 5 dollars.

Rowley's face lit up when Rodrick said that. "Greg, take it! Take it! We can buy ice cream tomorrow. Pleeeaaase?" he pleaded.

"Fine, whatever." He got up and took the dollar from Rodrick, who gave a broad, stupid smile.

"So, when mom asks, tell her that I already taught you how to play the drums," Rodrick reminded. Greg nodded. "Now get out of here."

"But we're still–"

"Play somewhere else! In your room or something."

There was no point arguing with Rodrick. Both of the middle-schoolers groaned; Greg turned off the video game and then they went upstairs.

"So," Rodrick breathed out heavily and slumped on the couch. He spread his arms and left them hanging on the backrest. "Project… Les Miserables," he said, pronouncing it correctly this time.

I couldn't help but smile a little. I sat on the couch, like a foot away from him, and pulled out my laptop, book, and notebook out of my bag.

A/N: Wow. I finally found time to update this after so many months! I'm really sorry I kept you guys waiting. I got very busy with school and stuff. But thank you so much to those who read this over the months, and to those who are still reading and will keep reading this until I finish it. :) Don't forget to fave, follow or leave a review! Thank you!