Valerie Sherrard - Random Acts

PUFFIN

RANDOM ACTS

VALERIE SHERRARD has written more than a dozen novels for young people, including Counting Back from Nine, shortlisted for the Governor Generals Award, and The Glory Wind, winner of the Geoffrey Bilson and Ann Connor Brimer Awards. Her work has been shortlisted for numerous Canadian awards, including CLA Book of the Year for Children, TD Canadian Childrens Literature, Red Maple, and Snow Willow. She lives in Miramichi, New Brunswick.

Also by Valerie Sherrard

Counting Back from Nine

Rain Shadow

Driftwood

The Glory Wind

Tumbleweed Skies

Testify

Accomplice

Watcher

Speechless

Three Million Acres of Flame

Sarahs Legacy

Sams Light

Kate

The Shelby Belgarden Mysteries

For my granddaughter Emilee.
Let your life sing.

One

Looking back, I blame the Buffalo wings the most.

I forget who decided it was a good idea to order what the local pizzeria calls the Friends Combo. As in, a party pizza, garlic cheese fingers, a large Caesar salad, a dozen Buffalo wings, two litres of Pepsi and a tub of chocolate mint ice cream. We scarfed down every last crumb in about fifteen minutes, chomping and grunting like steroid-frenzied pigs at a trough.There were three of us.

The end result was a trio of sad faces on top of bloated bodiessprawled attractively in my living roomclothes loosened, immobilized by our own gluttony. The overdose made me drowsy but there was a lot of whimpering in the air and that prevented me from dozing off.

And yes, some of those moans came from me, but the loudest came from the exaggerated performance of Bean, whose real name is Emerson Firth. The nickname is courtesy of his grandmother, who called him Butter Bean when he was a baby. After that, it went through a few adaptations as he grew, including Beanski, Beaner and Beanbo, before it slimmed down to plain old Bean. Ironically, the one (and only) person who calls him Emerson now is that same grandmother.

Bean was nearly horizontal in Dads old green reclinerthe ugliest but also most comfortable chair in the room. His glasses were kind of skewed on his face, which made him look a bit less geek-like than usual. With short dark hair, a thin triangular face and glasses, Bean cant escape the geek label. Everyone expects him to be able to solve their computer problems or help them with their math, when the truth is it took him an hour to master his iPhone. Seriously.

Not that hes dumb. Thats not what Im trying to say at all. He might even be a bit above average in some things, but hes no genius. He just looks like one.

The second person suffering from the Italian overdose that day was Jenna Bayley. Jenna is my other best friend, and an organization freak. Schedules and lists are kind of an obsession with her. I swear she goes through at least one notebook and a whole pad of Post-it Notes a weekeven though she has everything stored electronically and backed up to the yin-yang. At any given time, I can find a dozen or more notes from her in my possession. Here are a few examples of the important things Jenna feels the need to write down, even though nine times out of ten shes already sent me a text saying the same thing:

Ill be over at 7:00.

Hey, Zoey! Check out Surprised Kitty on YouTube.

Dont forget to download the RunKeeper app.

I think you get the idea.

Were your quintessential practically-thirteen-year-olds, Jenna and I. Both of us are oh-so-ordinary, never-going-to-stand-out-in-acrowd types, although shes the skinny version and I have my struggles with various bulges. We both wear our hair (hers is dark blond while mine is boring brown) long and straight. I have bangs and she doesnt.

Jennas post-piggery pose was, frankly, a bit annoying. She was sprawled across the couch with her jeans unzipped and her super-stuffed tummy protruding approximately a quarter of an inch. For that, you need to unzip?

It didnt exactly flood my heart with sympathy as she lay there muttering things like, Im dying, and Whyd I do it?

Whyd you do what? Bean asked. Nearly take my arm off over the last piece of pizza?

No. Whyd I eat so much, Jenna groaned.

You dont see a connection between the two things? Bean said.

Shut up, Bean. Jenna swatted the air, as if her arm might magically reach across the room.

But Beans focus had shifted. A faraway look crept over his face as he lifted his right leg several inches. His butt rose from the chair and hung suspended, rather menacingly I might add, in the air.

Jenna bolted upright. Do NOT do that in here! she yelled.

What? You want me to swell up until I burst and die? Bean asked. He actually tried to look offended as he lowered himself back into the chair.

Yes, Bean. Thats exactly what I want. To be in a room with your bloated corpse, Jenna said.

It wont be bloated if it bursts, Bean pointed out.

Even more appealing, Jenna said. Could you try not to be so gross!

Im a guy, he said, like that was a legitimate excuse.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that last year this particular guy was my sort-of boyfriend. Sort-of because Im not officially allowed to have a boyfriend yet. Thankfully, that torturous part of my romantic history (actually, that is my romantic history) is over. After a wretched summer of what amounted to some sweaty handholding and a couple of awkward kisses, we broke up. Our romance was so ill-fated that even the breakup was an accident.

Bean thinks I called it quits, which isnt actually the case. We were on the phone one day around the end of August and I was flipping through the programming menu on the TV when the remote suddenly refused to co-operate. I tapped it against my hand a few times.

Oh, come on! I said.

What? Bean asked.

This isnt working, I grumbled.

Oh, thank goodness! Bean said before I could explain that I was talking about the remote. Ive wanted to say that for ages but I didnt have the courage.

I stopped fiddling with the remote. Right, well Since I didnt have a clue what he was talking about, I left it at that and waited for a hint of some sort. It didnt take long.

When did you know? His voice was animated, like when youre super-excited about something. Luckily, he was too thrilled to wait for me to answer. I think I knew almost right away, but I kept trying to talk myself out of it, or into it, or whatever. But lets face itgoing out was ... just ... weird. Only, I didnt know what to do about it.

There was a pause. By then, Id gotten it. My boyfriend was in a rapturous fit over the thought that I was dumping him. Its hard to know what to say in that kind of situation.

Anyway, Zoey, Bean went on, the important thing is that were admitting it now. I didnt say anything before because I was scared wed stop being friends. That would be horrible.

Awful! I said. It would be horrible not to be friends with Bean.

But this is perfect, he said. Now that we know we both feel the same, we can go back to the way it was before we had this crazy idea.

All true, and yet I couldnt help feeling put out. I managed to hide my annoyance and act like I was just as happy as he was. And once it sank in, I honestly was. Dating Bean had been a mess, start to finish. After being close friends since approximately forever, going out had seemed like a great idea. Except it wasnt. It was as if all the ease and comfort had disappeared from our friendship, and the effort of