Danny Constantino's First (and Maybe Last?) Date Read online

  “What’s so interesting about them if they’re all the same?”

  “What’s so interesting about life?” Zoey asks. “We’re born, we do a bunch of stuff, we die. The end. It’s all basically the same.”

  “That’s not what we believe at my house,” says Ajay.

  “What do you believe?” Zoey asks.

  “We’re Catholic,” Ajay tells her.

  “So you’ve got Jesus and the saints and all that?”

  Ajay exits the bus after Zoey. “Jesus and the saints and we get to go to heaven if we don’t make our mothers too angry.”

  Just before I follow, I remember why I rode the bus today in the first place. “I’ll catch up later,” I call after my friends. I turn back to Mr. Beamon. “I have something for you.”

  “Oh?” he says.

  I reach into my bag and retrieve the coffee cup with Mom’s business card. “My mother says you might sell your house. She wants you to have this.”

  Mr. Beamon leans forward and reads the message on the side of the mug. “Everything turns to sold, huh?”

  “That’s what happens when you’re the top real estate agent in Cuper Cove.”

  Mr. Beamon nods thoughtfully. He and my mom grew up together. I’m pretty sure they might have dated once upon a time. Now he plucks a tiny green figure off the dashboard and drops it into the cup. “You can give that back to your mother.”

  From the bottom of the mug, a plastic toy that resembles a fat green jelly bean with a smiley face and a zucchini-shaped nose stares up at me.

  “That’s Mr. Nosey,” Mr. Beamon explains.

  “Mr. Nosey?”

  He nods. “Please tell the mayor that if she’d like to stick her nose in my business, then she should call me herself.”

  “Mr. Beamon,” I say after a long moment, “my mom sticks her nose into everybody’s business. That’s what she does.”

  “In that case,” he says, “I look forward to her call.”

  Chapter 4

  how to survive falling down a well

  Barely twenty-four hours later, every single kid at Cuper Cove Middle School seems to believe that Natalie Flores Griffin and I are “a thing.”

  In the hallways, boys I don’t know clap me on the back. In between classes, girls I’ve never talked to let me know how much they’re looking forward to seeing Natalie and me at the Halloween dance. I find several envelopes addressed to Natalie Flores Griffin tucked into my locker as if I could hand them to her myself.

  At lunch, I join Ajay at a cafeteria table with our regular group of friends. I pull up a metal folding chair and sit beside him. “Is there anybody you didn’t tell about Natalie Flores Griffin?” I ask under my breath.

  Ajay looks up from a comic book. “I told Zoey on the bus. That’s all.”

  A moment later, Zoey, who’s wearing a T-shirt that says EVERYTHING IS GONNA BE DAIJOBU, takes a seat across from us and begins to unpack a brown-bag lunch. “I thought you were nice,” I tell her.

  “Sometimes I’m nice.” She opens a plastic container filled with apple slices. “Sometimes I’m not.”

  I point at the kids around our table. “Why did you tell them about me and Natalie Flores Griffin?”

  Zoey glances at our friends. At the moment, they’re having a strangely in-depth discussion about the best way to survive falling down a well. Besides Ajay, there’s Darius Bryan, a tall, lanky black kid who wants to change the name of our math club to the Cuper Cove π-rates.

  Because Pi + rates = Pirates.

  On the other side of the table, Billy Bennet, who’s built like a wide, pale cement block, sits next to Madeline MacSweeney. She’s a tiny white girl who reminds me of one of those small, pretty peregrine falcons that’s got eagle eyesight and a two-hundred-mile-per-hour attack speed. Mr. and Mrs. MacSweeney volunteer on my mom’s campaign committee, so Maddie’s got several MISSY CONSTANTINO FOR MAYOR buttons pinned to her backpack. I do not.

  “If you fall down a well,” Billy insists, “you should just wait at the bottom and yell for help.”

  “And what if nobody comes?” Maddie asks him.

  Billy shrugs. “Take a nap and wait.”

  Maddie rolls her eyes. “Take a nap and die is more like it.”

  “See,” I say to Zoey. “They’re all cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, but you still went ahead and told them and everybody else that I’m going out with Natalie Flores Griffin.”

  “Danny,” says Zoey, “are you going out with Natalie Flores Griffin?”

  “No!” I tell her.

  “Then why would I say that?”

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  “If I fell down a well, I’d start counting,” Darius announces. “If I stop falling before two, then I’ve probably hit water, and I can just swim to the top. If I get to five, I’m about four hundred feet below the surface of the earth, and that’s going to be a problem. After ten, I’m over a thousand feet down, and I’m hoping this well goes all the way through the earth so that I can come out the other side.”

  “How long would it take to fall all the way to the other side of the earth?” asks Billy.

  Darius scribbles a few numbers onto the cover of his notebook. “About three days,” he finally says. “Not counting the time you lose bouncing and scraping off the walls on the way down.”

  “Wow,” says Maddie. “Darius is a pi-rate and a spelunker.”

  I’m pretty sure she’s being sarcastic.

  “Here’s the thing,” Zoey says to me. She picks up an apple slice and points it at my face. “I didn’t tell anybody about you and Natalie. Do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “First of all, it’s not my secret to tell.” She takes a bite of the apple. “Second of all, it would cause complications. And every rom-com fan knows that complications are not supposed to happen before the meet-cute.”

  Ajay lowers his comic book. “I think the kindergarten juice box incident should count as Danny and Natalie’s meet-cute.”

  Apparently, he was paying attention during the rom-com lecture Zoey gave on the bus yesterday.

  “You can’t put several years between meet-cute and the next step,” Zoey tells him. “And before all that, we have to discover what our main characters really want.”

  “That’s easy,” says Ajay. “Danny really wants to go on a date with Natalie Flores Griffin. Next question?”

  Zoey shakes her head. “It’s got to be less obvious than that.”

  “Hey, Danny,” Billy calls to me now. “How would you get out of a well?”

  “I’d avoid falling in in the first place,” I tell him.

  He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Maybe it works like that if you’re lucky enough to be going out with Natalie Flores Griffin,” says Darius.

  I turn back to Zoey. “Okay, so how does everybody know about this?”

  Zoey takes another bite of her apple. “So there’s this thing called the Internet. Sometimes it’s like a phone booth where you can have private conversations. Other times it’s a library where you can look up all kinds of information. And sometimes it’s like one of those grocery store bulletin boards where people share messages for everybody to see about yoga classes and lost puppies.”

  “Why are you telling me about the Internet?”

  “Have you gone online recently?”

  I would if I could, but Asha’s still got my phone. “No.”

  Zoey reaches into her lunch bag and pulls out her cell. We’re not supposed to use our phones during the day, so she takes Ajay’s comic book and uses it to disguise the fact that she’s swiping at a screen. It’s a good thing none of our teachers are nearby, because Zoey is about as subtle as a firecracker at a funeral. A moment later, she closes the comic, places it atop the phone, and slides everything across t
he table to me. “Check it out,” she tells me.

  I glance around before I take the book. It’s a weird Archie horror issue called Jughead: The Hunger, and it’s more likely to attract a teacher’s attention than a phone. Finally, I lift the cover and glance at Zoey’s cell. On-screen, there’s a pretty Instagram selfie of a smiling Natalie Flores Griffin.

  “Look at what she wrote,” Zoey tells me.

  I lean forward and read the caption.

  I JUST RECEIVED THE BEST NOTE EVER. MAY BE I’M GOING TRICK-OR-TREATING WITH MY FAVORITE BOY NEXT DOOR! THANKS, @DANNYCONSTANTINO!

  “Teacher coming,” says Darius.

  Zoey grabs her phone and slips it back into the lunch bag. Ajay takes Jughead: The Hunger, slides it between the pages of a notebook, and then heads to a lavatory, where he’ll probably hide—and read—until the end of the period. Meanwhile, I feel like I have been punched in the stomach.

  Nearby, a boxy intercom speaker attached to the wall buzzes to life. There’s a squeal of feedback followed by my grandmother’s voice, which fills the room. “DANNY! DANNY CONSTANTINO! COME TO THE OFFICE! RIGHT NOW!”

  “Now what?” I say.

  “You better go find out,” says Billy.

  Like all my friends—like the whole school, really—Billy both loves and fears my grandmother.

  I stand, gather my things, and head for the door. “We can’t wait to meet your date!” Darius calls after me.

  I turn and shout at the top of my lungs. “NATALIE FLORES GRIFFIN IS NOT COMING TO CUPER COVE!”

  A sudden wave of quiet washes across the cafeteria and stops me in my tracks. I scan the room and see every face staring back. A small girl with curly red hair gets to her feet and takes an unsteady step. She looks as if she’s about to burst into tears. “She’s not?”

  I stare at the kid for a moment, then shake my head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I have no idea what I’m supposed to say.

  “What happened?” asks the girl.

  “Nothing happened,” I say. “It’s just—”

  “Did you break up?”

  I shake my head. “It’s not like that.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “That’s it,” I say. “She wants to come, but she’s sick.”

  Another screech of feedback interrupts our conversation. Gram’s voice explodes from the intercom once more. “DANNY CONSTANTINO. WHERE ARE YOU? GET TO THE OFFICE RIGHT NOW!”

  “I’ve got to go,” I tell the redheaded girl.

  She takes a quick step forward and grabs my hand. “Please tell Natalie that we’re praying for her.”

  This, I realize, is what it must feel like to fall down a well.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Promise?”

  “You bet.” I pull my hand away and get out of the cafeteria as quickly as possible.

  A moment later, I step into our school’s main office. I’m surprised to find Ajay’s sister, Asha, standing next to my grandmother’s desk. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  Asha gives me a big grin. “I have your phone.”

  “I know,” I tell her.

  “And Danny,” she says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Danny!”

  “What?”

  Asha bobs up and down on the balls of her feet. “DANNY!!!”

  I glance over Asha’s shoulder and see my grandmother laughing and shaking her head.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Well,” says Gram, “if Asha Kalli is telling the truth—”

  Asha starts hopping up and down. “I am! I really am!”

  “Danny,” says Gram, “you’ve got a date for the Halloween festival dance.”

  Chapter 5

  natalie flores griffin is doomed

  A huge, hand-painted version of Cooper the Unicorn covers an entire wall inside the Cuper Cove Middle School office. A speech bubble above Cooper’s head holds the school motto so it looks like our mascot is yelling UNICORN PRIDE IS JUSTIFIED! On the day you learn you’ll be going to the Halloween dance with Natalie Flores Griffin, it should be hard to disagree. But PRIDE is not what I am feeling right now.

  TERROR is what I am feeling right now.

  I stumble toward a chair near Gram’s desk and drop into the seat. Thanks to my grandmother, tall ferns, potted peace lilies, and a couple giant yuccas fill the office. She’s got a lush indoor garden at home too. According to Gram, there are two kinds of people in the world: anthophiles and dunderheads. I had to look up both words.

  Anthophiles are people who love flowers.

  Dunderheads are schmoes, schmucks, nitwits, and numbskulls.

  Gram has strong opinions about flowers.

  Now my grandmother is laughing, and Asha’s still talking. “I saw Natalie’s post on Instagram,” she says. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I went ahead and checked Danny’s email.”

  “How did you open my phone?” I ask. “It’s password protected.”

  Asha rolls her eyes. “JACKOLANTERN. I got it on the first try.”

  The whole neighborhood knew Jacko when he was alive. He wasn’t a very sneaky dog then either.

  “When I read what she wrote, I just couldn’t believe it! I came over as fast as I could!”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t have school today,” says Gram.

  Is it? I wonder. Is it really?

  Asha turns to me. “Danny, Natalie can’t wait to see you! She sent her phone number too.”

  Nearby, our principal, Mr. Maggio, in a cream-colored suit and thick-framed eyeglasses, reads lunchtime announcements into a heavy silver microphone. Mr. Maggio’s voice, a deep, booming roll of thunder, echoes through hallways and classrooms. According to our principal, the chess club meeting has been canceled, there’s a Girl Scout car wash this weekend, and a Halloween-themed cupcake sale is scheduled for next week. Even on a normal day, none of this would matter to me. But this is not a normal day. BECAUSE NATALIE FLORES GRIFFIN IS COMING!

  “Can you believe this?” Asha squeals. “Can you believe this?”

  Mr. Maggio shoots Asha a dirty look.

  “Sorry,” she whispers, “but Danny Constantino’s got a date!”

  “And for today’s final announcement,” Mr. Maggio says into the microphone. “Danny Constantino’s got a date.”

  “Was that really necessary?” Gram asks as Mr. Maggio returns the mic to its shelf.

  He gives Gram a big smile. “Principals need to have a little fun now and then too.”

  I am so glad I could be here for him.

  Gram turns to me. “So what do you have to say for yourself?”

  I say nothing because I have lost the ability to speak. Meanwhile, my mind fills with memories of me and little Natalie. In preschool, we used to share finger paints. In kindergarten, she used to hoard all the red LEGO blocks. In third grade, we realized that we both hated fish sticks. We’d sneak fish sticks out of the cafeteria and give them to squirrels at the edge of the playground. I wonder if Natalie is still a fish stick hater. And what if she’s still a juice box squeezer too? What if she’s changed and not for the better? Actually, what if I’m a bad person now, and I don’t even know it?

  “Danny!” Gram taps a pencil on the top of my head. “What’s going on in there?”

  I blink. “My life is flashing before my eyes.”

  “That only happens when you die,” says Gram.

  “I think I’m going to die.”

  “Sorry, Danny,” says Asha. “Death is not one of your options.”

  I turn in my seat. “Here’s something else that’s not an option. I am not going on a date with Natalie Flores Griffin.”

  “What do you mean?” Asha says. “You’re the one who asked her.”

  “No,” I remind her. “Y
OU’RE the one who asked her.”

  “I know.” Asha clasps her hands together and starts jumping up and down again. “And she said yes!”

  “Then you take her to the dance!”

  Before Asha can reply, the door swings open and now Ajay’s here too. “I was on my way to class,” he announces. “I look into the office, and I see my sister.” He turns to Asha. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

  “Danny doesn’t want to take Natalie Flores Griffin to the Halloween dance,” Asha explains.

  “Yes, he does,” says Ajay.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t.”

  Ajay gives me a dumbfounded look. “Then why did you ask her?”

  I don’t mean to raise my voice, but I can’t help it. “I didn’t ask her!”

  The yelling attracts the attention of Mr. Maggio, who’s now at the copy machine on the other side of the office. “What is all the hollering about?”

  “Nothing!” I say.

  “Natalie Flores Griffin!” says Asha.

  Mr. Maggio smiles. “I loved her in The Wall and the Flower.”

  “I liked her better in Mutant Zombie Soul Pirates,” offers Ajay.

  “Wasn’t that a cartoon?” Gram asks.

  “She was still really good,” says Ajay. “And very brave too.”

  “How could she be brave in a cartoon?” says Mr. Maggio.

  Ajay rolls his eyes. “She had to fight mutant zombie soul pirates!”

  Our principal nods. “That makes sense. Did you know that she’s from around here?”

  “Oh,” says Ajay. “Is she really?”

  “Yes!” shouts Asha. “And Danny doesn’t want to take her to the Halloween festival dance.”

  “It doesn’t matter what Danny wants,” Ajay tells his sister. “Natalie Flores Griffin is not coming to Cuper Cove.”

  Asha shoves my phone into her brother’s hands. “Read this.”

  Ajay glances at the screen. A moment later, his mouth drops open. He looks at me, then down at the screen again. Finally, he turns back my way. “Danny,” he says in an amazed whisper, “Natalie Flores Griffin is coming to Cuper Cove.”