Leap Day Read online

  “Thank you,” I tell him.

  I hand it to my father. “You look, I’m too scared.”

  “Hey, this is a great picture!” he says.

  “Really?” My heart leaps.

  “No,” he says, stifling a laugh.

  “No?” I grab the license from him and force myself to look. My face is flushed and one eye is half closed. My lips are kind of puckered. I look like a sick fish.

  “Hey, at least your hair looks pretty,” he says.

  I frown. “It’s really awful, isn’t it?” Then I start to laugh and my father leans over to look again.

  “I’ve seen worse,” he says as we head out to the car.

  “When?”

  He pretends not to hear me.

  On the way back to school I stare at the license, struck by how official it looks. It looks even cooler when I cover my picture with my thumb. “Hey Dad, if you want, I can drop you at home and take the car back to school with me.”

  “No thanks,” he says. “Besides, you’re only insured to drive Grandma’s car.”

  My parents still call the Shark Grandma’s car even though she died eight years ago. Sometimes, when it rains, I can still catch a whiff of her White Shoulders perfume. “You added me to the insurance before I passed the test?”

  “I told you I knew you could do it.”

  “I almost didn’t. Did you see that parallel parking job?”

  “I couldn’t watch.”

  “I wish the instructor hadn’t been watching.”

  We pull up to the school and I check my watch. Physics class should be almost over. “Thanks for taking me, Dad,” I tell him, jumping out of the car. “Let me know when you want to finish that conversation about the dreams.”

  “Soon,” he says. Then, “Wait, this came for you this morning from UPS.” He hands me a box about the size of a regular tube of toothpaste.

  I turn the box over in my hands. The postmark says “Boston.” It must be from my leapmate Niki. I shove it deep into my book-bag. I’ll open it at home. It will give me something to look forward to. As expected, the halls are empty when I get inside and it’s a little spooky. Just me and the ghosts of students past. Maybe even poor Hunter Jr., who was lost before his time. I stop at my locker and grab my lunch. The door to my physics class is open so I peer in. The class is gathered around Mr. Lipsky’s desk, watching some pulley-and-lever experiment. I enter as quietly as possible and set my bag down on my desk. I join the group and stand next to Zoey, who I am happy to see made it to school after all. I should probably tell her about the smudge of orange on the side of her neck, but I don’t want to upset her.

  As soon as she sees me she grabs my arm and asks in a loud whisper, “Did you get it?”

  I nod, and she grips my arm even tighter and starts jumping up and down. “So the lake is on for tonight!” Between her fingers are more orange streaks.

  “Yup.” I’m starting to wonder if my friends are looking forward to this initiation more than I am.

  “Can I see your license?” she asks when the experiment is over. I quickly change the subject. “So I hear there was a self-tanning incident this morning?”

  She nods. “I was as orange as, well, an orange. I looked like I came from another planet.”

  “Welcome to my driver’s license picture.”

  “I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

  “Trust me, it’s that bad.”

  I open my notebook to get out my homework when Jeff Grand comes over and says, “So?”

  I smile. “I passed.”

  He looks confused and then says, “Passed what?”

  “My driver’s test. What did you think I meant?”

  His cheeks redden. “Actually I was talking about Katy. Did you tell her I wanted to ask her to the prom?”

  Oops, I had totally forgotten about that. “I haven’t told her yet. But you should know that only juniors and seniors can ask someone to the prom.”

  Again, he looks confused. “Oh, I didn’t realize that.” “There’s always the Spring Dance if you like her that much.”

  “It’s not that I like her, exactly.”

  “Then why do you want to ask her to the prom?”

  Jeff is apparently stumped by what should be an easy question. He gives his head a little shake and goes back to his desk. And women are supposed to be hard to figure out?

  10:35 A.M. – 12:15 A.M.

  Chapter 4B: Everyone

  Jason Count likes to be the first person in the gym and is surprised to see Josie Taylor sitting alone on the bleachers. He smiles back at her because it’s the polite thing to do, but really he’s thinking that he wishes he was alone and that he doesn’t need one more girl to have a crush on him. Things are complicated enough with Emily. When they saw each other in the hall between first and second period, she barely spoke to him before running off with her friends. He can’t understand why she would do that after all they’d been through the night before. He hasn’t considered that she might be embarrassed. He thinks he must have done something wrong. He jogs around the perimeter of the gym, going over everything he has said to her since this morning on the bus. He is careful not to get too close to the bleachers so Josie won’t think he’s flirting with her. Twelve years later he will see Josie at their high school reunion, won’t recognize her, and will ask her out.

  Emily Caldwell’s math teacher holds out her hand and waits for Emily to place her homework in it. Emily shakes her head. “Tomorrow, I promise.”

  Her teacher moves down the row and Emily lets her eyes flutter closed for a minute. She should have asked Jason to let her copy his homework. He has the same class this afternoon. She feels bad for having blown him off in the hallway earlier, but sometimes she can’t stand the look in his eyes when he sees her. It’s a combination of pity for her situation, anger at her father, and possessiveness. She wishes he could just look at her with love like she was a normal girl from a normal family where people don’t get hit for spilling apple juice on the counter. She’s tempted to break up with Jason just so she doesn’t have to see that look anymore. But as much as she hates that look, she hates the idea of not having it more.

  Katy hastily pulls her gym shirt over her head and kicks off her sandals. She still hasn’t let go of the note Mrs. Lombardo returned to her. She keeps it in her hand while she slips her shorts on. When she’s the last one in the locker room she pushes it deep into her bag and locks it in her small gym locker. She can’t believe Mrs. Lombardo read it. Not that she did it on purpose, but it’s just too embarrassing for words. She had told Katy not to worry, that her secret was safe. Katy slips on one sneaker, grabs the other, and says a little prayer that Mrs. L doesn’t tell the person that the note concerns. She would just crawl into a hole and die.

  That night Mrs. Lombardo will go home and call her older sister Ann-Marie in Chicago, whom she’ll tell the whole story to. Together they will laugh until Ann-Marie threatens to pee in her pants. Mrs. Lombardo will never tell anyone else.

  Out in the gym, Katy slips on her other sneaker and assures Josie that she’ll definitely pass her driver’s test. She crosses her fingers behind her back so Josie won’t see that she’s actually not so sure of that fact. Josie is a great best friend, but she’s not such a great driver. The one time she rode in the back while Josie was practicing with her dad, Katy almost threw up from motion sickness. Josie tends to weave.

  In the front lobby Mike Difranco taps his fingers against the window to a tune that’s been running in his head all morning.

  I’m a cowboy

  on a steel horse I ride,

  ’cause I’m wanted,

  wanted,

  dead or alive.

  His older brother is a big Bon Jovi fan. The oldies. Mike likes them too, but he prefers music you can dance to. Not that he would ever be caught dead (or alive) listening to it anywhere else than through his earphones. He could just picture what his brother would say if he heard techno coming out of Mike’s stereo
. It wouldn’t be anything good, that’s for sure.

  A girl he’s never seen before joins him in the front hall. She has very shiny hair. He nods hello. She probably has a dentist appointment, while he has to meet with Judge Philips again like a regular juvenile delinquent. He wishes he could change places with her. Not that he’d want to be a girl and deal with all that girl stuff like periods and makeup. But to be as innocent as she seems. Ahhh, that’d be nice.

  Mike wishes he had never stolen that stupid bike, which even at the time he knew was too small for him. If only he could go back in time to last year before he knocked over his neighbor’s lawn ornament and they called the police, or even further back to before his very first crime — throwing a rock into his other neighbor’s window with a note tied around it professing his love for their daughter. He didn’t mean to break the window. He was only eleven, but it started his reputation as a troublemaker. Maybe he could shift the universe a little and slip into a parallel one where he would be a good kid instead of a screw-up.

  He chuckles at the thought of actually being lucky enough to fall into a parallel universe and the girl hears him. Not usually one to talk to pretty girls, he finds himself blabbering and it turns out she’s nice. He’s embarrassed to tell her where he’s going. He decides if he wants to talk to more nice, pretty girls he’d better shape up.

  Later at the courthouse in town hall, Judge Philips, who went to grammar school with Mike’s mother, listens to Mike’s earnest promise to turn over a new leaf and decides to give him one last chance. He assigns him to thirty hours of community service volunteering at either the children’s hospital or the retirement home. Mike splits up the hours in each place and finds he likes helping people. In three years he’ll join the Army, be promoted quickly through the ranks, parachute from a helicopter over an undisclosed location in the Persian Gulf, break both his legs, and get a purple heart. He will talk to many nice, pretty girls who would never believe he wasn’t always an upstanding citizen.

  Josie’s father speeds through the streets on his way to pick up Josie at school. He almost never speeds, but today he’s juiced up. He feels like a teenager again, even though he’s about to take his own teenager to get her driver’s test, a fact that blows his mind. How did his baby girl get to be sixteen already? He glances over at the dashboard clock and pushes slightly harder on the gas pedal. He hopes Josie passes her test today, although it might take a minor miracle. Hopefully the special magic of Leap Day will come through for her. If she does fail, she’d only have to wait three weeks before taking the test again. But he knows it would crush her. She puts on an air of confidence, but he suspects she’s quite worried.

  As Instructor Joe had anticipated, the girl he is assigned, Josie Taylor, grasps the steering wheel too tightly, not allowing it to glide through her hands on the turns. This causes the car to jerk slightly each time she straightens out. As soon as he tells her it’s time for the parallel parking exercise, he knows she will fail it utterly. After thirty-six years on the job, little surprises him. He feels slightly nauseated after he gets out of the car, but he passes her anyway. He knew he would pass her even before they got in the car. She’ll be just fine with a little practice. He knew she would hug him, too. They always do, the borderline ones.

  As Katy walks to her next class she feels her left ankle vibrate. Katy smiles broadly. Two freshmen boys think she is smiling at them so they smile back. Katy doesn’t notice. The party at the lake is on! She bends down and pulls the phone from her sock. As she drops it into her bag she makes a decision. Tonight she will come right out and tell Josie what she had written in the note. It is time. Let the pieces fall where they may.

  Zoey keeps glancing up at the clock in her physics classroom. Josie should be getting back any minute. She can’t stand the suspense. Zoey doesn’t turn sixteen until October, and she envisions the four of them tooling around town in the Shark all summer, windows open, wind in their hair. Anything to get out of her house and away from her mother’s prying eyes. She wishes her mother could be more like Josie’s, who is very hands-off.

  Finally Josie comes in the room and tells Zoey she passed the test. Zoey doesn’t know if she’s happier for Josie getting her license or that they’ll all get to go to the lake. She can’t wait to tell her brother, Dennis, that she’ll need the blackberry brandy for tonight after all. Since Josie’s going to be driving them around for the next few months, they better make her birthday really special.

  Jeff Grand no longer remembers why he thought it was a good idea to ask Katy to the prom. He goes back to his seat after talking to Josie and puts his head on the desk. He always seems to mess up lately. It didn’t used to be this way. He’s too tired to figure out how to change things. That’s the last thought he remembers having before the teacher, Mr. Lipsky, taps him on the head and tells him to wake up and stop drooling.

  12:30 P.M.– 1:20 P.M.

  Chapter 5A: Josie

  I bet the smell of our cafeteria is better than any other one across the country. For the last year, instead of unidentifiable gray meat and steamed vegetables and watery macaroni and cheese, we’ve had Taco Bell, Burger King, and Pizza Hut. One of the perks of living in Orlando is that stuff like this happens all the time. They explained to us that a marketing company is testing which menu items appeal the most to the teen demographic, or something like that. Disney is probably involved somehow. They’re involved in everything else. My leapmates could not believe it when I wrote them about it. It’s pretty darn cool. You can still buy the gray meat and watery macaroni, but nobody does.

  Since I’ll be getting my free Leap Day birthday pizza tonight, I opt for Taco Bell. As I reach for a tray someone tugs at my hair. It’s Rob. His sidekick, Danny Daniels, is with him. With a name like Daniel Daniels, I suppose it makes sense that he’s more than a little odd. Legend has it his father dared his mother to put that name down on his birth certificate. They’re divorced now.

  “Hey, li’l sis! How’d it go?”

  “Get ready to share the car.”

  “That’s great!” He hugs me. I’m glad I don’t have one of those brothers who has to pretend to be all macho around me in public. Zoey’s older brother only grunts at her in the halls.

  “Jolly good job, ol’ chap,” Danny adds, tipping a pretend cap at me.

  “Are you still being British?” I ask as I reach out for my Burrito Supreme. “Isn’t that phase over yet?”

  Danny is about to answer when he looks down at his feet. A quarter lies on the ground between us. He reaches down for it and realizes too late that it is glued to the floor. “Bloody hell,” he says, straightening up.

  Rob and I laugh. “That’s been there for two weeks,” Rob says. “The oldest trick in the book.”

  Danny kicks at it with his foot but it doesn’t budge. “Yeah? Well, Bob’s your uncle!” he says, and heads toward the pizza line.

  I ask Rob what the heck that means. He shrugs. “Some British expression. He says it when he can’t think of anything else.”

  “Why are you friends with him?” I ask, only half serious. “He’s been my best friend since I was four. How many friends have I got?”

  “A lot now. Remember? You’re popular.”

  He shrugs. “It’s not all it’s cut out to be.” He takes off after Danny and calls back to me, “Congratulations again!”

  I pay for lunch and make my way through the tables toward the outdoor courtyard. The food selection is only one of the great things about lunch. The other great thing is that the sophomores and seniors have the same lunch schedule, so I get to see Grant. He always sits at the same corner table, but he’s not there now. He brings his lunch from home, so he’s usually seated already when I walk by. I casually glance around the cafeteria, making sure no one knocks into me and sends my burrito and soda flying. Three people wish me a happy birthday as they squeeze around me. It’s nice to be remembered. As I’m waiting, I can’t help noticing a pattern in the way people eat their lunches. Th
e girls pull one item at a time out from their bags while the boys spread their stuff out like a feast. Someday someone will have to do a study on that. After a minute more I can’t find any other excuse to stand in the middle of the aisle and am forced to give up on Grant.

  Zoey and Megan are at our usual picnic table half underneath the tree by the fountain. It’s a coveted spot. Zoey gets her shade and the rest of us slowly get tan. I’m about to lay my tray on the table when a plane roars overhead. It instantly makes me recall that last night I dreamed of a satellite falling. The dream had felt so real. I have to fight off the need to hide under the picnic table. I steady my grip on my tray until the plane finally passes. Megan slides her lunch of cucumber slices and water over to make room for me to sit. No one else even notices the plane, to say nothing of ducking from it.

  “So?” Megan says, holding out her hand. “Let’s see the evidence!”

  “She won’t show anyone,” Zoey says, taking a bite of her Whopper.

  “Why not?”

  “She says it’s not flattering.”

  “It isn’t!” I insist.

  Katy runs up to the table and throws her brown bag next to my tray. “Let’s see it!”

  Megan laughs. “Good luck.”

  “I look like a dead fish,” I say weakly. Luckily at that moment Jenny Waxner, our class president, comes around with flyers and hands us each one. All it says is WWW.ORLANDOHIGHSCAVHUNT.COM AT 4 PM SHARP.

  “The sophomore scavenger hunt is today?” Megan shrieks. “Why didn’t we know this sooner?” Anything that cuts into Megan’s rehearsal time for next month’s Beauty and the Beast audition at MGM is barely tolerated. She almost wasn’t going to try out for the school play, but I convinced her to do it. I’m hoping she lands the part of the nurse so she and I can have some scenes together. Assuming I’m Juliet of course. I refuse to consider any other outcome.

  “The Sophmore Scav is always the same day as Senior Dart Wars,” Jenny explains impatiently. “The list will go up at four, the hunt ends at six. On the dot.”