Pennybaker School Is Revolting, стр. 30
“What is …”
He wrapped the white frilly thing over his head and tied it with a big bow under his chin.
“Bonnets!” he crowed. As if that was a good thing.
We were silent as we climbed into our dresses and aprons and bonnets. Chip insisted that we roll our pant legs up to our knees and put on lace-up boots that made my feet feel like they were being strangled. “For authenticity,” he’d said.
Finally, we stood side by side in the mirror, looking at ourselves.
“Your dress fits better,” I said, plucking at my waist. “Mine is all baggy here.” I yanked up the dress and studied my feet. “And my shoes don’t match at all. I should be wearing those cream-colored ones, and you should be wearing these …” I trailed off as I realized what I was saying. “Come on. Let’s go.”
We went downstairs and found Chip’s mom, who was wearing sporty jeans and a sweatshirt. She squealed with delight when she saw us, and immediately ran for her camera. I gave Chip a death glare while she was gone.
“Aren’t you two just the cutest little things?” she said, snapping away. “Oh, Thomas. Your shoes are just adorable.” Great. Exactly what I wanted to be: the cutest and adorable—and caught on camera for the whole world to see.
After what seemed like nine hundred thousand photos, she finally put her camera away and shouldered her purse.
“Should we go?”
“Absolutely!” Chip said, sounding way too cheerful for a guy who was about to have to sit with his knees together for a whole car ride.
Chip sang a bunch of goofy songs about valleys and starlight and some dog named Tray, and for a while it felt like Prairie High was on the other side of the earth rather than just on the other side of town.
“Why don’t you sing something normal?” I asked as we pulled onto the highway.
“This is normal for the eighteen hundreds. I figure if we’re going to act the part, we might as well be authentic.”
I picked up a handful of skirt and waved it at him. “This isn’t authentic enough for you?”
He rubbed the fabric between his finger and thumb. “Well, technically, not really. This dress is made of cotton, and it really should be wool or linen, as those were the predominant textiles available at the time.” I gave him a look. He shrugged. “What? You asked.”
“No, I was not asking about what type of textures dresses were made of in the eighteen hundreds.”
“Textiles,” he said.
“What?”
“Textiles,” he repeated. “You said ‘textures,’ and while it’s true that varying textiles do have varying textures, the word you were searching for was definitely ‘textiles.’ ”
I stared at him, then turned to look out the window.
Before he could get to the end of a song about firelight, we pulled into the Prairie High School parking lot. And it was only then that it really sank in that I was about to walk into a high school full of rowdy teenagers while wearing a floor-length dress and a bonnet. I stared out the window in horror as Chip bounded from the car.
“Something wrong, Thomas?” Mrs. Mason asked.
“N-no,” I said, although I couldn’t get my fingers to wrap around the door handle.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” she said cheerfully. Too cheerfully. I still didn’t move. “So …”
“Yeah,” I said. “Actually, I think I hear my mom call—”
I didn’t get to finish, because Chip had come to my side and whipped open the door. He curtsied, and three girls burst into giggles.
“Go on, boys,” Mrs. Mason said, and I could see Chip was about to curtsy again, so I swallowed and slid out of the car to stop him. It didn’t work. He waited until I was standing next to him, shut the door, curtsied again, and said in a high-pitched girl voice, “Let’s go, Mabel.”
“No,” I said through clenched teeth. “Don’t do that, or I will get back in that car and go home.”
Mrs. Mason pulled away from the curb. I watched as she drove out of the parking lot, leaving Chip and me and our fancy dresses behind.
“Do you prefer Martha?” he asked. I started walking. “Minnie?” he asked to my back. I continued forward, eyes pointed straight ahead so I wouldn’t see the amused looks on the faces of the teenagers we passed. “Wait. Thomas,” Chip said when we reached the front door.
“What?”
“I have a title for our mission.”
“I told you not to title it.”
He spread his hands out, as if he were reading from a sign. “The Perplexing Case of the Teacher Who Is History. Get it? He’s a history teacher, and … You get it, right?”
Without a word, I pulled open the door and walked into the school.
TRICK #21
THE EMBARRASSMENT EFFECT
Inside, the school was a bustle of noise and movement. Every time I heard a laugh, I was convinced it was directed at me. I never thought I would wish for breeches and suspenders, but I did.
I pulled Chip into a dark hallway, slipping past the accordion gate blocking it off for the night. I could hear the echo of a whistle blowing in the distance, along with the thud of a bouncing basketball.
“Where are we supposed to go?” I hissed.
“How would I know?” Chip asked, scratching beneath his bonnet.
“It was your plan,” I said. “I figured you had it all mapped out.”
He shook his head. “Part of the fun of a mission is learning things along the way with and about your partner. For example, while perusing the halls of Prairie High, I might discover that you are allergic to asparagus but eat it anyway, and you might discover that I have a toothpick collection.”
“You have a toothpick collection?”
“No, but if I did, you might discover that during our mission here tonight. See?”
No, I totally didn’t see, but how does someone argue with that kind of logic? “Come