One-Third Nerd Read online

  “We just need to get it to stay on. I know!” I run back to the junk drawer for string. Then I cut holes in the diaper, tie string to both ends, and then tie the two strings around her back.

  Dakota ducks under Cupcake’s legs.

  “Uh-oh,” she says from underneath. She makes a few adjustments.

  In the middle of the procedure, Cupcake lies down with a thump and won’t get up.

  When she finally stands up, the diaper is hanging off to one side like a wing flap. Cupcake scratches. Then she pulls the diaper off with her teeth and stands at the door whining to be let out.

  “What’s the dog so upset about?” Mom calls from the living room.

  “Nothing,” we shout.

  “I know,” Dakota whispers. “Maybe we can teach her to pee into the toilet.”

  I run for the doggie treats. Dakota and I squeeze into the tiny bathroom. Together we lift Cupcake onto the toilet, but she slips all around, scrambling wildly.

  We try again. This time she yelps, bolts for the door, and scratches to be let out.

  I try to lure her with doggy treats. She eyes me warily, pawing harder at the door.

  Mom knocks on the other side. “Do not torment the dog.”

  We crack open the door and Cupcake makes a run for it.

  Dakota sighs. “Doesn’t she know we’re trying to help her?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Let’s check online to see what doggy diapers you can buy look like,” I suggest.

  Dakota gets the laptop and we sit side by side on my bed clicking on “doggy diapers.” “They cost more than fifty dollars.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah, because you got to get these liners,” I say.

  “Here, this one says ‘washable.’ I guess you wash it out every night,” Dakota says.

  “We only go to the Laundromat once a week.”

  “How much would seven cost?”

  “Seventy-five dollars or so.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’m going to invent a disposable doggy diaper and become a millionaire,” Dakota announces.

  “There already is one. It would cost us around fifteen dollars a week.”

  “I’ll invent a cheap one, then.”

  “Is that before or after you cure cancer?”

  Now Izzy knocks on my door and I open it. She tries to drag Cupcake in, but Cupcake won’t come near us and Izzy lets her go.

  “I think Cupcake has had enough of this diaper business,” I say.

  “Cupcake big girl now,” Izzy announces. “No diapers.”

  But when I go into the living room, I see a new yellow puddle by the television.

  Monday morning, when I wake up, the rain is drumming on the back patio.

  My mother comes in with her umbrella dripping. Cupcake shakes water droplets all over the floor. Mom throws an old beach towel around her and dries her off.

  Monday is tennis team, but rain means it will be canceled. There is only one place in our town with inside courts, and you have to be a member. Only rich people can afford that.

  Mom doesn’t play tennis. She doesn’t understand. Luckily, Dad does.

  I wish we could have moved to an apartment with a wall I could hit against. Or one of those complexes that have their own tennis court.

  The rain makes me grumpy, but I wear shorts and bring my racket—just in case it clears up. I never wear a raincoat. No guy in fifth grade does. Dakota isn’t big on raincoats either. Izzy wears rain boots that look like ducks and carries a pink umbrella that matches her raincoat.

  We run up the stairs and out to the street, piling into Mom’s little red car. She’s dropping us off at school today, because she has a meeting with Izzy’s teacher and the speech pathologist.

  The drops splat on the windshield. Slap, swish, slap, swish. The wipers are on high speed as Dakota rattles on about Mr. Gupta. “He does not have ideas on his own and so he has asked me to come up with some. Some adults”—she points to her head—“just don’t have it up there.”

  “Adults are smart,” Izzy says. “They take a test.”

  “An adult test?” I ask.

  Mom smiles. “No test, Izzy. But maybe there should be. Not all adults are smart.”

  “Why?” Izzy asks.

  “That’s a million-dollar question.”

  “Mom says that when she doesn’t know the answer,” Dakota tells her.

  “You know?” Izzy asks Dakota.

  Dakota stares out the window at the slick sidewalk. “Stupid kids grow up to be stupid adults. Nothing to be done about it, unless I discover a cure for stupidity, which I will work on, but not right now.”

  Mom stares at Dakota in the rearview mirror. “You are on thin ice.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Rubbish, Dakota! Listen to me,” Mom says. “We are family. One family. One. And we watch out for each other.”

  “I know, Mom. I’m the one trying to keep us together. I’m the one trying to save Cupcake, remember? It’s just that there’s only one of me.”

  “Liam and Izzy have good ideas too.”

  “Not as good as mine.” Dakota crosses her arms.

  “Dakota,” Mom says.

  “Okay, we’re a family. But…Cupcake is the glue that holds us together, and nobody gets that except me.”

  * * *

  When Dakota and I get out of the car, I can’t resist asking her: “What happened?”

  “I had to close my eBay account. I’m not supposed to go on there ever again, and I have to clean the patio every day for a month and give Pink Kitty to Izzy.”

  “Pink Kitty! Wow, that is bad.” I try not to smile too big.

  “But when I win five hundred dollars, everyone will thank me.”

  * * *

  Outside class, the two-tone-hair kid is hunched over his phone. Moses has his phone out, but he’s nodding to guys he knows. A nod from Moses means a lot.

  “Liam.” Moses nods to me. “You brought your racket.”

  “Just in case.”

  He smiles. “I hope it stops raining. Did you bring the Bigfoot stuff?”

  The one thing Moses asks me to do and I blow it. I was hoping he wouldn’t remember.

  “Forgot?” he asks.

  “Uh, well.”

  “He doesn’t really have anything. He was lying, man,” the kid with two-tone hair says.

  “I’m not lying. My sister, um, sold my stuff,” I mumble.

  “Why’d she do that?”

  I shrug. “Who can explain sisters?”

  Moses laughs. “How much she get for it?”

  “Not enough,” I mutter.

  This would never happen to someone like Moses. Moses’s family would have enough money to take his dog to the vet. His biggest worry is where to keep the remotes for all his stuff.

  “Better lock up your tennis racket,” Moses says.

  “I know, right?” I try to smile.

  But then I look down at my racket. We got it used and we’ve never even paid to have it restrung. The grip looks shabby because I use it so much. Moses has a Babolat. Brand-new. I know Moses isn’t making fun of my racket. But I feel bad anyway.

  “Know what my sister did once?” Moses whispers.

  I shake my head.

  “Held my book report ransom. It was due the next day. She wouldn’t give it back until I painted toenails at her slumber party.”

  “Really?”

  He nods. “Seventy toenails and I painted every one.”

  We all laugh.

  “Know why superheroes don’t have sisters?” Moses asks.

  “Couldn’t get anything done,” I say. “But some do, don’t they?”

  Moses shrugs. “Nobody ever asks you if you want a sister, that’s for su
re.”

  “Tell me about it,” I say.

  “Changes your life forever and you aren’t even consulted. Listen, you get your Bigfoot stuff back, you keep it at my house, okay, dude?”

  He fist-bumps me.

  After dinner I check the laptop for the weather tomorrow. Seventy percent chance of rain. I text Dodge.

  Hit w Crash 2moro?

  He texts back. Rain.

  I reply. Not 4 sure.

  This time he doesn’t answer.

  * * *

  Dakota sits on a kitchen stool, her furry pink slippers popping on and off her heels. With her right hand, she’s drawing. With her left hand, she’s trying to find her mouth with her spoon.

  “Nice pictures, Dakota,” Mom says.

  “They aren’t pictures, Kimberly. They’re diagrams.”

  “Diagrams, of course. Silly me.” Mom smiles. “And since when did you decide to call me Kimberly?”

  “I’m trying it out.”

  “The name Mom has been around for thousands of years. I think it’s a keeper.”

  “We’ll see,” Dakota answers.

  “Put your bowl in the sink and get ready for bed,” Mom says.

  “Look, I’m washing my bowl.” Izzy turns to Dakota. “I wash out your bowl?”

  Dakota nods.

  “That’s nice of you, Izzy,” Mom says.

  “I nice,” Izzy says.

  “I’m nice,” Mom corrects her. “Come on, nice girl, let’s get your teeth brushed.”

  I take a peek at Dakota’s diagrams. I hate to admit it, but I don’t know what to do about Cupcake and I’m actually hoping one of Dakota’s crazy ideas will work. “How are you going to make the umbrella hover?” I ask her.

  “Drones.”

  “They’ll be expensive.”

  Dakota shrugs. “My other idea is an exploding piñata. That way nobody has to hit it for the candy to come out.”

  Mom comes into the hall. She hands Dakota her toothbrush. “No more explosions. Remember our deal?”

  “How about quiet ones?”

  “No such thing.”

  Dakota hops to the bathroom, still holding her diagrams. A minute later she bursts out, toothpaste dripping down her cheek. “Mom—I mean, Kimberly. Will you promise not to give Cupcake away until after they award the money?”

  “What money?” Mom asks.

  “For the maker fair projects. We turn our projects in on Thursday, and then they tell us which will represent our school for all-county, but then it takes three weeks for the county to decide.”

  “Is that true, Liam?”

  I nod.

  Dakota glares at me. “Why’d you have to ask him?” she says to Mom.

  “Just making sure you both heard the same thing.”

  “The words are the same. How could we hear them differently?”

  “It happens.” Mom sighs. “Look, we can’t wait three weeks.”

  “You always say I’m smart and I can do whatever I want to. Well, I want to wait three weeks,” Dakota declares.

  “I know you do, but Torpse gave us three weeks, and that was almost two weeks ago—” Mom grabs Cupcake just as she’s about to pee and hauls her outside.

  “Liam will talk to Mr. Torpse about it,” Dakota shouts.

  I swivel on my heel. “Me? I will?”

  “He likes you,” Dakota says.

  “He doesn’t like me. He doesn’t like anyone.”

  “You can make him like you, though. You know you can.”

  “No I can’t.”

  “Mr. Gupta likes you.”

  I nod, a warm feeling rolling over me.

  “How’d you do that?” she whispers.

  I stare at her. Since when does Dakota care what other people think?

  “I try to get along with people,” I say.

  “That’s too hard.”

  “Love”—Mom is back inside with Cupcake now—“we don’t know if you’ll be picked to represent the school and we don’t know you will win the all-county. Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.”

  “That makes no sense,” Dakota says. “Anybody with any brains would count their chickens before they hatch. Otherwise they wouldn’t know how many chickens they’d have. And then they’d compare before with after. They’d make two columns. Dead one. Live one. Dead one. Live one. Wouldn’t you make two columns, Kimberly? Wouldn’t you?”

  Mom and I laugh.

  Dakota struts around the plastic chairs and then she gives a big bow.

  When it rains, we have recess in the cafeteria. Mr. Gupta runs rainy-day games, which always involve Skittles. Kids will do anything for Skittles. Skittles rule.

  Every once in a while, a parent will complain and then we have to switch to brussels sprouts. But nobody is going to run their fastest for brussels sprouts.

  Yesterday we played Skittles relay. Today we’re tossing Skittles with our nondominant hands. Mr. Gupta puts the Leadership Council kids in charge. Then he blows a whistle and everybody moves from station to station. Dodge helps me.

  I’m getting more caution cones from the back when I see Dakota talking to Mr. Gupta. Dakota is hopping up and down. “I don’t see why we can’t,” she says.

  “A hoover umbrella is challenging and will take more than four days—”

  “Hover,” Dakota corrects.

  “Hover, yes. But I do not think you can complete this by Thursday,” he says as five kids stampede toward him.

  “Mr. Gupta, Jacob got two turns,” somebody yells.

  “I won. They said I didn’t but I did,” a kid with orange hair insists.

  “But would it still be eligible for the five hundred dollars—would it?” Dakota is hopping again.

  “I will talk to Mrs. Johnson about this. Do you have some idea of how you will get your umbrella to hover?”

  “How do airplanes fly?” Dakota asks.

  “That is a good question, Dakota Rose. But I do not have time for a full explanation at this moment. It has to do with the air pressure on the top of the wing pushing down and the air pressure on the bottom of the wing pushing up.”

  Dakota chases after Mr. Gupta. “Is it like a leaf blower?”

  Why does she do this? Dakota is like a battery-powered ride-on that keeps going and going. Will a teacher stop liking you because your sister is a pain?

  “Mr. Gupta!” another kid shouts. “I won. They said I didn’t!”

  “Mr. Gupta! Mr. Gupta! Milo’s sucking the Skittles then putting them back.”

  “Dakota, we’ll talk again,” Mr. Gupta says.

  Dakota sighs a big, deep sigh.

  * * *

  At home after school, I’m just pouring myself lemonade when my phone buzzes with a text. It’s Moses! Moses is texting me!

  Wnt 2 ply sngls tmoro?

  He wants to play with me! It’s not raining right now, but the sky is dark and heavy and the ground is wet. It’s supposed to rain for the next four days. Just my luck.

  I text back a rain emoji. Then I look up at Dakota, who asks, “Do we have a leaf blower?”

  “No. We don’t have any leaves.”

  “Let’s ask Torpse the Corpse.”

  “He wouldn’t even let us borrow the trash in the trash can.”

  Dakota is looking up into the empty air. “I know!” She thunders out of the room and begins digging in the bathroom drawer. A few minutes later she comes back with a blow-dryer and an umbrella. Then she sits down and begins dismantling the umbrella. Next time I see her, all the metal parts are in a pile on the floor and she’s using the blow-dryer to try to get the sagging fabric to stay up.

  My phone buzzes again. Moses!

  My club

  Of course he has a club. Man, I hate my life.
/>
  Not a mber. I stare at my words for a full minute. But I don’t see any way around this. I push send.

  Dakota tries putting some of the metal ribs back in. They don’t stay. Then she gets out the duct tape and cuts cardboard into a big circle.

  Then my phone buzzes.

  Gust pass

  I start jumping up and down. And then it occurs to me that a guest pass will cost money too. I text back.

  $$$?

  A second later Moses replies: $0. U my gust

  I’m his guest? Moses’s guest! How great is that? I get out my tennis ball and start tossing it around. How many guys get to play tennis when it’s pouring rain outside?

  “What we need are wings,” Dakota says. “Or I can discover a new element for the Periodic Table of Elements.”

  I tune her out. All I can think about is getting to play against Moses. He is good. Really good. But I’m good too.

  Will I win? Will he want to play with me again?

  I get Cupcake and my tennis balls and go outside. I practice my serve toss, and when I don’t catch the ball, Cupcake runs it down for me. We have it all worked out, Cupcake and me.

  There is a lady behind the desk who is wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt with Bayside Club embroidered on it. She looks at me like she knows I’m not a member and she can see that I live in a basement apartment and my mom sleeps in the living room and we don’t have enough money to take our dog to the vet.

  I hang back.

  Moses heads for the counter with long strides.

  Moses gives the lady his member number and then hands her a guest pass. She nods, and then she asks me to enter my name, address, and phone number on a tablet. I figure that’s in case somebody steals something. They’ll know where to look.

  I keep one eye on Moses as I’m typing in my address. He won’t peek, will he? Nope. He’s walking toward a room with a movie-theater-size TV and a blender bar with fruit drinks. There’s a basketball court, a pool, and rooms for exercise and yoga classes.