Free Drive Me Crazy by Terra Elan McVoy

conversation or two.
    After school on the Diary Incident day, Kendra Mack and Gates Morrill were already back there, hunched together over something I couldn’t see. Kendra Mack couldbarely keep her giggles inside the cup of her fingers. Gates Morrill kept trying to grab whatever they were looking at, but she’d only shove him in the chest with her elbow, hard. As seats started filling up, every now and again I’d hear one of them say, “Let me see,” or “Read something.” I figured they were talking about something that didn’t concern me and ignored them as best I could.
    When I heard the word Pencil , though, my whole body tingled.
    “Who the heck is Pencil ?” Gates Morrill said for the benefit of everyone.
    “Some dork, duh,” Kendra Mack answered. “Ha, listen to this.”
    Everything inside me was groaning no . No that Kendra Mack had my best friend’s journal. No that she was reading it out loud for everyone on the bus, and no because there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it.
    “‘I know I’m far too young to experience Real Love like my parents, but Pencil isn’t smelly and goofy like half the boys in our school.’” Kendra Mack paused and guffawed, “Like you, Gates Morrill!”
    “As if,” he said, and everyone laughed like it was a good comeback.
    “‘Instead he seems to have real interests, and a real soul. A soul that maybe wants to understand mine.’”
    Fiona sounded so dumb that even I was wincing. I clenched my teeth and my eyes together at the same time, wanting to bite off the sound of Kendra Mack’s voice forever. It was torture waiting for their stop. At least when they got off they’d only have each other to share Fee’s diary with.
    “Ooh, snap, you’re in here!” Gates shouted, and Kendra Mack squealed.
    Our bus driver told everybody to keep it down, but all I wanted was more noise to drown all this out.
    Gates Morrill took on a fake-girl voice and read, “‘I really don’t understand why Cassie admires Kendra so much. She’s not that special. We both know those kids have money and looks and nothing else. Most of the time not even looks. But maybe Cassie doesn’t care any longer about being something more. Even with Lagoon she’s more worried lately about does he think she’s pretty, or that the “wrong” people will find out she likes him. Honestly, I worry she’s getting a little bit shallow.’”
    I was so stunned, I hardly heard whatever they said next.
    Now I shudder, remembering, glad for the block of chocolate Nono’s handing me. Howie comes over, trying to show me the right way, but I take the grater and tell him I know how to do it. The friction of pressing down feels good. I imagine I’m pressing down on Fiona’s face.
    “What’s with these super-dumb nicknames?” Gates Morrill had said, back in his regular voice. “Pencil? Lagoon? At least come up with something cool, like Shark Tank or Ninja Thunder.”
    “She’s trying to be deep, dummy,” Kendra Mack said back. “But really she’s lame.” Practically the entire bus was snickering.
    I hated that they were calling Fiona lame, and that I wasn’t doing anything about it. I hated that Kendra Mack and everyone who was listening now knew about Cory, even though I was grateful Fiona hadn’t called him by his real name. If Kendra Mack kept reading on, though, and Fiona forgot the code word, it would be all over school in less than a minute.
    But worse than all that was hearing what Fiona said about me in there. That I was shallow . I certainly wanted to be more than pretty. Why else would I have been in so many clubs, and worked so hard to keep my GPA higher than even Tom’s? I wasn’t sure it was wrong to want Cory to think I looked nice. Fiona could talk about soul all she wanted, but she’d started wearing green a lot more once she found out it was Pencil’s favorite color. And it’s not like clothes aren’t important to her, too. Was it so wrong to pay attention to what Kendra