Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher by Wendelin Van Draanen

a little. “Samantha, think about what a nice gesture it would have been. Plus, it would have given you something to talk to her about.” She sits back again. “You might even have gotten hooked.”
    “Oh, so you want me hooked on a soap?”
    She gives a little shrug and says, “I want you to know what the ruby amulet contains and why Sir Melville is desperate to save Jewel from herself.”
    “So tell me.”
    She gives me a sly smile. “Oh no. You need to watch the show.” She gets serious and adds, “You understand I was using the ruby amulet as a metaphor, right? I really want you to know what’s going on with
her
. And, yes, your mother should take some initiative, too, but you both need to show more interest in each other.”
    I was quiet a minute, trying hard to battle against the feeling in my gut that she was right. And because I wasn’t about to admit it—at least not while I was still so ticked off at my stupid mother—what popped out of my mouth was, “Are you sure that wasn’t an analogy? Or maybe a simile?”
    She thought about it a second, then grinned. “No, I’m not.”
    I don’t know why the conversation made me feel better, but it did. So after I finished my soup, I took a shower and got on my homework. And after we had some real dinner, I actually read ahead on my assigned book until bedtime.
    I tried not to think about Casey.
    Tried not to think about my mother.
    Tried not to think about being the Brady Bunch.
    And when Grams caught me dozing off on the couch, she pulled the book out of my hands and kissed me on the forehead. “Tomorrow’s another day,” she whispered.
    And oh boy, was it ever.

THIRTEEN
    The next morning Bad Mood Bob was back. And although he’s never Mr. Chatty, he actually didn’t say one word to us in homeroom. Oh, he grunted at Cole Glenns, which translated to Get up here and read the announcements, and he snorted and rolled his eyes at Crystal Agnew when she asked if he was doing okay, but that was it.
    Well, except for a disgusting belch after he downed half a can of Coke, but what else is new?
    And I guess his bad mood didn’t get any better during first or second periods, because at break Marissa and I saw him ripping into Cisco outside his classroom. We couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he was definitely red in the face and jabbing his finger at Cisco.
    “Wow,” Marissa whispered when the Vincenator had finished his tirade and was storming into his classroom. “I wonder what that was about.”
    We waited for Cisco to move away from the classroom, then ran up to him.
    “What bee flew up his butt?” I asked.
    Cisco just kept on walking.
    “Hey!” I called, hurrying to keep up with him. “What happened?”
    He shakes his head. “A window in his room was left open last night.”
    We wait for more, but no more comes. “Was something stolen?” I finally ask, ’cause the windows in Mr. Vince’s room are low enough for someone to climb through.
    He shakes his head.
    “So that’s it? He was all bent out of shape over an open window?”
    Cisco snorts. “Nothing new. He finds something to explode over a couple of times every year.” Then he mumbles, “I’m just tired of him calling me Nacho.”
    “He calls you
Nacho
?”
    “Like I said, nothing new.”
    “But … have you reported him?”
    He shakes his head. “I’m not interested in another one of his fake apologies, man.”
    The tardy bell’s about to ring, so we tell him to hang in there, and then Marissa runs off one way and I do a U-turn back to Vince’s classroom.
    Now, the stuff with Cisco made me plenty mad, but it was during third period that things got
really
interesting, and that started with Billy Pratt.
    He came in wearing a chicken hat on his head.
    You know, the kind with the wings over the ears and the neck sticking out over the forehead?
    Anyway, Billy comes clucking into class, jutting his chicken head forward like he’s pecking at air, then sitsdown at the tardy