Maybe It's Magic

Chapter 12

"Hey, Mol! Not listening to your father on Father's Day is against the—"

"I was listening." Molly stood straighter. "I'll go get it now."

Her dad scoffed. "Get what?"

"Another beer?" she suggested.

"Nice try. Still got the first one." Her dad peered at her. "You okay today?"

Did everyone have to ask her that? Then again, how could she blame them. She was a complete and total space cadet. Or maybe just boy crazy....

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Fifth Grade...

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Her mom had been right about the girls going boy crazy. By fifth grade, every single one of them was incurable. If there was paper being passed around, it was never tic-tac-toe or hangman anymore. Entire forests were sacrificed to either M.A.S.H. or Paper Fortune Teller and every answer was a boy. It was fine when it was boys from movies or TV, but once they started it with real boys, it just seemed sick.

The boys definitely thought so, especially when some of the girls had the nerve to just go up and tell them who they were marrying.

"I don't know where I'm living when I grow up," Jake said one day as they walked home from school. "But it's not gonna be in a shack with Erica D'Annunzio and twelve kids."

"Chrissie H. tried to make me write a boy's name in today," Molly said. "So I put Spongebob."

Jake had laughed. "See, that's why you don't suck, Mol. You don't do those stupid games."

"I know. It's so lame. I never play it with them," Molly said carefully. It was technically true. But she'd actually tried both games -- just not with the girls. No. That kind of thing was done alone, in total secrecy, like to the point of being under her covers with a flashlight. She wasn't jerky enough to put real boys' names in... except for Jake. But that was only a test. So it wouldn't end with him.

So far, she hadn't ended up with him once. Even in M.A.S.H., she ended up marrying Frankenstein and having thirty-six kids. At least they lived in a mansion. But there was a moment, during Paper Fortune Teller, where she spelled out B-L-U-E (the color of his eyes) and held her breath, thinking it was a sign that she'd definitely unfold that flap and it would say "Jake."

It didn't. It said Dracula.

She told herself that was a good thing. It meant she obviously didn't have a crush. But she still worried that the only reason she didn't go boy-crazy with the rest of them was because she was already insane over one stupid boy and, if she was, he could never, ever, ever know.

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Yes, Molly was a pretty good liar. Especially to herself. "Okay, fine. I wasn't listening," she told her dad now. "But I'm fine." She lied pretty well to her parents, too. "It's just so hot." That part was true.

"Well, go cool off. But give me some more slack first." Dad pointed at the hose, then her car. "I don't know what the hell you did to this thing, but that mud's all caked on." He brightened up. "Hey! Maybe I need the pressure washer."

Yet another gadget her dad bought himself before she or her mom could think of it. "What are you doing working on Father's Day, anyway? I'm pretty sure that's against the law. It's my car. I'll pressure wash it."

"You don't know the right settings. You weren't listening when I showed Jake and—"

"What about Jake?" Molly started. "I don't know where he is! Don't call him. He's busy... I think."