16 Things I Thought were True Part 13

1 6 t h i n g s i t h o u g h t w e r e t r u e "The sooner the better! Can you imagine? Me and you on the open road." She giggles.

"Are you old enough?" I say, not believing this is coming together so quickly.

She sits up straighter, like it will make her taller. "I'm eighteen. I can't help it that my parents gave me the short genes. Sue me. There are worse things." She glares at me and then taps the side of her nose. "Maybe we'll find out that your dad has a big nose."

I snort, even though I'm pretty sure she just insulted the size of my nose. I reach for my phone. I need to tweet this news. The road trip will happen.

"It's at least four hours to drive," I tell her as I type. I glance up. "Plus a ferry ride. And you need a pa.s.sport to drive across the border."

"I went to Scotland last Christmas. Do you have a pa.s.sport?"

she asks.

"I got one a couple of years ago, when we went on a school trip to Vancouver," I tell her.

"I want to come," Adam says.

I stop typing. We both turn to look at him. I'd actually forgotten he was sitting there for a minute.

"You can't come on a road trip with two girls," I say.

Amy bounces on her b.u.t.t some more and makes a weird giggly sound. "Sure he can. Road trip! Road trip!" she chants. The girls in red turn to look at us, but I don't even care that we're draw- ing attention to ourselves. I've practically committed to going on a road trip with this tiny little person who sounds like an overactive 81 sixteenthings.indd 81 9/9/13 2:21 PM.

J a n e t G u r t l e r mouse, and that makes me happier than I've been in a long time. I should be worried.

"Why not?" Adam asks. "Are you afraid you won't be able to control yourself around me?"

"Ugh," I say, and my cheeks warm. "Please."

Amy giggles a little too enthusiastically.

"Girlfriend," I remind Amy. "He has a girlfriend. He's kidding."

"I know. And I think I can control myself," she squeals to Adam.

"But can you?"

I ignore her and frown at Adam. "Why would you even want to come?" The thought of being in a car with him for over four hours makes my insides twist up.

He ignores me and focuses on Amy. "Maybe you guys need someone to look after you. Maybe I need a vacation. Do you mind if I come along?"

She grins, and I see again how pretty she is when she smiles. "Not even a little."

"But why would you want to?" I repeat.

He laughs out loud. "Come on. You're not that bad. You'll have your face buried in your phone the whole time. Why do you care if I come along?"

"No," I say, determined to talk him out of this crazy idea.

Immediately. My excitement is getting squashed down by his suggestion.

"Why not?" he asks.

"How about we don't want a bunch of male junk in the car?

Never mind a room," I tell him.

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1 6 t h i n g s i t h o u g h t w e r e t r u e "My junk?" He glances down at his crotch.

"G.o.d. Not that junk. Gross. Just, you know, junk. Boy junk."

"I like boy junk," Amy says.

"Now there's a tweet!" Adam says to me.

I roll my eyes. "You're not helping," I say to Amy. "And what do you know about boy junk?"

"What do you know about it?" she asks.

"I have brothers."

"Oh. Well," Amy says, "I figure it's like girl stuff, only different."

"Pretty much," Adam says.

I glare at both of them. "We wouldn't all be allowed to take vaca- tion on the same weekend anyhow," I say.

"Who cares? I'll quit." Amy stands up, walks to the trashcan, and throws away a huge portion of her cotton candy. "I already came clean and you know I don't need the money. I'll quit. A road trip is better than working in the snack shop. And summer is almost over anyways."

A new group of kids storm into the staffroom, a mix of yellow and red shirts. They're loud as they gather around a nearby table, but for once I don't care what they're talking about or worry that they're all laughing at me. One of the boys walks over to the vend- ing machine. "Yo," he says to Adam, "boss man."

Adam nods, and his happy expression changes just a little. I wait until the guy takes his chocolate bar and heads back to his friends.

Maybe he does need a break.

"I can't quit. I need the money for college," I say and then stop and swallow, thinking of my mom, the bills coming in. I'd give it

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J a n e t G u r t l e r all to her without too much remorse. Shaking that off, I turn to Adam. "You can't quit either. It would look bad on your resume for your fancy premed schools. Anyhow, you must need the money too." I frown, wishing he'd stop trying to ruin this.

"I do, but don't worry about that." He grins as if he didn't hear the negativity oozing from my mouth. "I can get the time off," he says. "For all of us."

"No, you can't," I tell him.

He frowns at me. "What are you? Work schedule patrol?" He gestures at the three of us. "Theresa is my aunt," Adam says and stands. "Nepotism is alive and well at Tinkerpark. She'll let us go.

I'm her favorite nephew. Sort of. Anyhow, don't worry. You won't have to quit." He glances at Amy. "Unless you want to."

Amy is doing a little dance on the spot. She has no rhythm at all.

None. But I smile at her, not caring if every one of those yellow or red shirts stares at us and makes fun of us.

"Not really. This is the best summer of my life." She grins.

"Huh," is all I can manage. Never saw that one coming.

"So," Adam says, "let's head to the office and book ourselves time off." Adam reaches for my hand to help pull me up, but I ignore him and stand on my own.

Amy stops her dance and pulls her phone out. "My fingers are sticky," she says, squishing up her nose.

"I wonder why," Adam says.

I glance at the phone she's holding. It's the newest model and is covered by a h.e.l.lo Kitty bedazzled pink phone case. Why did I not notice that before?

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1 6 t h i n g s i t h o u g h t w e r e t r u e "I'm calling my dad," she says. "This is going to be epic."

"Are you sure your parents will be okay?" I ask as I sling my back- pack on my shoulder.

"My parents will throw a party. Trust me. They're always trying to get rid of me. I think they want to have s.e.x in my bedroom." She smiles. "Joke. They want me to have friends."

Amy walks a few feet ahead of us, covers one ear with her hand, and starts gabbing loudly into her phone. Adam walks slowly beside me. "So? Road trip ready?"

I take a deep breath. "I'm kind of freaking out," I admit.

"It'll be awesome." He pushes his gla.s.ses up his nose. "Let's go do this thing," he says.

When Amy and I leave the office, we both have the next weekend booked off. We head back to our workstations together, and my mind is still reeling. Just like that, I'm going on a road trip. To see Bob White. It's actually going to happen.

"Don't you think it's weird that Adam wants to come along?" I ask her.

"No," she says. "The other day when I asked him to go on the rollercoaster with me, he told me his girlfriend lives in Vancouver.

He went on and on about her. Blah blah blah. I'm over my crush on him anyways. He's too intense."

I try not to laugh. "He's okay," I say, thinking of how much he helped out with my mom.

"He'll probably meet his girlfriend somewhere. I'm sure that's why he wants to come," Amy says.

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J a n e t G u r t l e r I ignore a twinge of something like jealousy in my middle parts.

It doesn't matter. He's my boss. Maybe my friend. Not someone to get jealous over.

"You reach five thousand followers yet?" Amy asks as we walk through crowds of families.

I have this superst.i.tion. If I can reach five thousand followers this summer, things will turn around for me in my senior year. I know it. #superst.i.tiousmuch I stop in my tracks and stare at her. "How do you know about that?"

"Um. Twitter. h.e.l.lo?" she says and keeps walking.

"You're on Twitter?" I ask and duck around a little boy running away from his mom. I smile at him and pull my phone out of my backpack.

"Um. Yeah. @5alive. I've been following you for weeks. You haven't followed me back."

"I have almost five thousand followers, Amy," I remind her, hold- ing my phone up in the air and hurrying to keep up with her. She walks fast for someone with such little legs.

"Well, la dee da," she says. "The people online, they don't really know you, you know."

I start walking fast to get ahead of her. I am fricking popular on Twitter. I rock on Twitter. "For your information, I'm going to meet some of my Twitter friends at a tweetup in Seattle."

"Yeah? When?"