Slinky Sullivan and the Dead Ringer
an excerpt

The next week, Brittany was absent from school for three days. When she came back, she was even quieter than usual. Mrs. Penderwick didn’t call on her and she didn’t answer any questions. I tried to find out what her problem was but I couldn’t get near her desk and Kalina Pate refused to pass her a note even though I passed notes for Kalina to her friend Kaki Moon all the time. I thought, see if I ever help you out again, Pate girl. Guess I’d have to wait until the afternoon bus. Who’d have ever thought I’d be looking forward to a school bus as my major source of human communication. Sheesh.
We also have a girl named Sanity Saffron-Forke. When my dad heard that name, he says that’s what happened when the grandparents went to Woodstock and the parents went to Nine Inch Nails concerts. Sanity is what most kids would call a Goth. She only wears black. Her hair is unnaturally black. She wears safety pins for earrings and paints her nails either black, dark blue, or dark purple. She has one t-shirt that says, “Don’t stereotype me.” Right. When everything you’ve got on your body screams Goth. Ever thought of wearing maybe gray one day, Sanity? Or even a little brown?
For our descriptive essay in language arts in August, she wrote about her pet python and how superior it is to mammalian pets. For our argumentative essay in early September, she wrote a seven-page paper on how Emos are superior to Preps. As if any of us knew what the heck either was. I figured she must be an Emo, since she was so for it. “Emo” sounds just a little too close to “Igmo” for my taste. But everything that comes out of Sanity’s mouth is about how she is better than everyone else. And in her essay she said Preps were snobs. Ha! I felt like saying, take a look in the freakin’ huge silver buckle of that skull-head belt you wear and take a gander at your own snobby face, In-Sanity. Even Mrs. Penderwick rolled her eyes.

That afternoon on the bus, Brittany was still quiet. I asked her general what’s-the-matter-type questions, but she wouldn’t talk. Finally, I decided it was time to use guilt. Nothing else had worked, and it’s what my mom and dad always did as a last resort. However, it doesn’t work on people whose parents haven’t used it on them. Just a tip.
“So Brit, who would you consider to be your really good friend this year?” I asked.
“Well, you, of course,” she said.
“Really? Hmm. And what do friends do?”
Brittany rolled her eyes. “They help each other. They tell each other their problems. They have fun together.”
“Right. And are we doing any of those things right now?”
Giant sigh on the part of Brittany. “OK, here’s the thing. Our maid killed my fish, and now it’s this huge thing with my mom because she loves our maid.”
“Your maid killed your fish? Why? Does she so much hate spraying Windex on their aquarium?”
“No, it’s not the fish she hates; it’s me. I tend to be a little messy. She has to spend more time in my room than any other.”
“And she killed your fish just because of that? Has she always hated you?”
Another sigh. “No, it’s just been since I started fourth grade. I study a lot now and I never really had to study much. When I get finished, I don’t want to clean. I just want to do something fun. Or else I just go to sleep because it’s too late to clean.”
“Did you tell your mom about not having as much time?”
“Sure, but she’s all, ‘That’s just apart of getting older and handling more responsibilities, Brittany.’ She says, ‘Just get it done.’”
“How long has that maid been working for your mom?”
“Geez, Slinky, is this CSI or something? What’s with all the questions?”
“It just doesn’t seem like the maid would do that if she’d been with ya’ll for along time. It doesn’t fit.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Fine. So when are you getting new fish?”
“Not. Mom said as long as I have this thing against Mrs. Carver, I can’t.”

When mid-term progress reports came out, Mrs. Penderwick reminded us that three weeks ago when school started, she had said the student with the highest grade point average mid-term would be given a coupon for a free box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Several kids went, “So what?” because their parents gave them that every morning. And doughnuts are OK, but I wouldn’t be staying up until midnight every night just to make sure I won. That’s pitiful. I knew Brittany would win because she was far and away the brightest kid at the school, not just the class. But she didn’t. It was Kalina.

Kalina makes good grades, but she doesn’t seem that smart in class. I just guessed she really knew how to ace a test no matter what. Turns out I was right, but more on that later. She was beaming at break, surrounded by her minions Karli and Kaki. Yeah, doesn’t it just make you want to barf? I know I should keep my mouth shut about people that irritate me but K Cult, as Brit, Gord, and I began to call it, was taking over the school. Whenever Kalina wore a new outfit, which was at least once a week, suddenly the following week every other girl in the school was wearing the same style. And I’m talking about down to the kindergarteners, ya’ll.
On the bus that afternoon, Brittany hinted that I might be just a tij jealous. I looked at her like she’d just swallowed a dump truck.
“What does she have that I don’t?” I asked Brittany. “Her parents make tons of money. So what? Far as I can tell, they’re always out of town and she has that bossy woman she calls O’Pear who looks about as fun as a final exam. She has popularity which I do not want, because everyone tries to copy everything you do, and I want to be original.”
Brittany raised her eyebrows and smirked. “But she has power, Slinky. We have no power. That popular status – she can make hoards of girls do anything she wants.”
“Scary,” I said. “Too bad she ain’t Jesus.”