Green Algae and Bubble Gum Wars (2 page)

I
t was a gorgeous, sunny day, but Maeve Kaplan-Taylor was not a happy camper. There was nothing quite as upsetting as watching her four best friends happily turn down Beacon Street on their way to their favorite hangout, Montoya's Bakery, without her. Katani, in her shiny silver-colored parka, was strutting ahead confidently. She was telling Charlotte and Isabel all about a fabulous sale going on at her favorite vintage store. Avery was jogging along behind the other three, happily dribbling a blue and yellow soccer ball. But Maeve, sadly, was left standing alone.
Now I know how that cheese must have felt in the song about the Farmer in the Dell. Poor little cheese!
Maeve thought to herself, dramatically touching her heart.

“Hey, Maeve, last chance—we really want you to come!” Avery hollered back, stopping her soccer ball under her sneaker. She beckoned for Maeve to join the group. “Think about it—a mug full of Montoya's chocolate deliciousness…?”

“Oh, I really, really
do
want to go! But I just can't—it's my tutoring day. Have a mug for me, okay?”

“Okay!” Avery shouted. And with that she punted her soccer ball up the street and took off in a wild chase behind it.

Maeve felt like there were lead blocks attached to her feet as she trudged back to her family's apartment on Harvard Street. After all, this had been a bad, horrible day right from the start. It all began when Maeve overslept for the second time that week and had to run to school without breakfast or major hair repair. A triple tragedy.

Then worst of all, Ms. Rodriguez had given the class a pop quiz in English. Maeve hated pop quizzes more than anything…even more than practicing free throws in basketball. Studying for a regular test was bad enough, but to be
ambushed
with a test…right when she was
starving…
that was just too unfair! And…lunch, of course, was none other than the dreaded tuna fish mac and cheese—maybe the worst thing ever invented. A cup of hot chocolate and some quality time with the BSG probably would have been the one thing that could've cheered her up.

The tiny silver lining on Maeve's ginormous black rain cloud was her ultra-cute math tutor, Matt.
Matt, Matt, Matt.
Maeve thought he looked like Caleb Tucker, the adorable actor from
Maplewood,
one of her absolute fave TV shows. Plus Matt was a student at Boston College. Compared to the immature boys in her class like Henry Yurt and Billy Trentini, Matt the Adorable was a dream. In Maeve's personal opinion, all tutors should have to be adorable by law.
Oh! Light bulb moment,
Maeve thought excitedly. Maybe Matt the Adorable could even make her
want
to learn science like Charlotte and Katani—they were both crazy about math and science.

When she arrived home, she was relieved to see that Matt hadn't arrived yet.
Phew.
Now she had a chance to have a snack and freshen up a little. As soon as she opened the kitchen door, a heavenly smell wafted her way.
Cookies—chocolate chip cookies.
From the plastic wrapper on the counter she saw that it was the kind from a big block of pre-made dough. Maeve's mother worked and didn't have too much time to make cookies from scratch, but Maeve didn't care one bit. Cookie dough was cookie dough. Period, final. Next to the plastic wrapper she saw a note in her mother's handwriting: “Hi, Maeve—I'm on a conference call in my bedroom—cookies will be done at 3:15—work hard with Matt! XOXO Love, Mom.”

“Hey, Maeve! Think fast!”

Maeve didn't have time to think at all, because something hard—very hard—suddenly smacked her in the chest. “Ouch!” she cried, watching a plastic ball roll away.
That really hurt
, she thought angrily. Maeve knew just who was responsible: with fiery blue eyes, she charged toward the sound of muffled laughter behind the china cabinet. Sure enough, there was her little brother, Sam, curled up on the floor, obviously pretending to be some kind of ninja Army dude—his favorite pastime other than torturing his older sister.

“What is
your
problem?” Maeve said, sounding every bit as annoyed as she felt.

“Huh? What'd I do?” Sam blinked innocently.

“Don't play dumb with me, Sam. You threw that ball at me for no reason.
Hard!
And guess what? It really hurt!”

Sam's smile disappeared when he saw that his sister wasn't joking around. Sam liked to tease Maeve—okay, Sam
loved
to tease Maeve—but he never meant to hurt her. “I'm
sorry,” Sam mumbled. “I was just joking around. I thought you would laugh.”

Maeve shook her head. How her brother ever thought that whacking her with a hard plastic ball would be funny was completely beyond her. “Oh, yeah? You know what makes people laugh?” Maeve asked.

Sam shrugged. “Um…what?”

Maeve mischievously raised an eyebrow. “You really wanna know?”

Sam nodded.

“Usually, this works every time.” Maeve wiggled her fingers and went in for the kill, tickling her brother until Sam shrieked with laughter.

“I need rescue!” Sam yelled.

Suddenly, a male voice spoke from behind the pair of giggling kids. “Is this a bad time, Maeve?”

Startled, Maeve looked up and brushed her red ringlets out of her face.
Oops!
Just her luck! Matt the Adorable had arrived. Usually, Maeve strived to act like the glamorous future movie star that she knew in her heart she was. Why did Matt have to catch her playing with her little brother?

Sam jumped up like a Mexican jumping bean, while Maeve slowly peeled herself off the linoleum kitchen floor. “Hey, Matt, wanna see my new Astro fighter plane?” Sam asked.

“Psst. Out of here, Sam! Matt's here to help me, okay?” Maeve whispered fiercely. She glided over to the oven, used the heavy mitts to slide out the tray, and flashed her best camera-ready smile. “Would you care for a pastry, Matt?” she asked, as she transferred the cookies to a rack. “Pastry” sounded way more sophisticated than “cookie.”

“Yeah, cool! Thanks, Maeve.” He eagerly took two and gobbled them down. Maeve looked at him and thought dreamily,
This is just what it would be like if we were married. He'd get home from work. I would have a warm snack all ready and waiting. And I'd be wearing a little dress with short puffy sleeves and a red and white checkered apron, and my hair would be pulled back in a ponytail with a big red bow…
Maeve's daydreams were snapshots captured from all the old movies she watched on Saturdays at the movie theater her dad ran, which, lucky for her, was right below her apartment.

“Hey, Earth to Maeve, are you ready to get cracking on your science homework?” Matt asked, shattering her delightful fantasy.

“Science, shmience,” Maeve groaned. “How about, let's not and say we did?”

“How about, your Mom would fire me?”

Maeve's eyes widened and she shook her head, feeling her curls brush her face. “Oh, no! I would never let
that
happen.” She sighed, reluctantly slung her pink backpack onto the kitchen table, and pulled out her pink science binder. Maeve reasoned that if you had to do school stuff, you might as well surround yourself in pink. She once saw an interior design show that explained how the color pink put people in an optimistic frame of mind.

“I have bad news, Matt. I mean—really, really, extraordinarily, super-duperously…um…”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Bad?”

“Yeah.” She pulled out a sheet of paper and held it against her chest for a moment. She was sure that showing it to Matt would result in the end of the world.

“Okay, let's see it, Maeve. Is it another C?”

Maeve blushed, a little embarrassed that
that
was Matt's first thought. “No…
worse
,” she moaned as she slapped the paper down on the table.

On the top, in bold letters, the page read
ABIGAIL ADAMS JUNIOR HIGH SCIENCE FAIR.

“This is, like, the ultimate tragedy.”

Matt muffled a burst of laughter. “Is that a fact? If I remember correctly, didn't you tell me just last week that
Romeo and Juliet
was the ultimate tragedy?”

“I mean in my own life, Matthew.” Maeve rolled her eyes, but secretly loved how Matt was joking with her…maybe even…
flirting
? She wasn't positive, but she made a mental note to ask the BSG later. “We both know that science stuff is hard enough for me as it is. But did you read this thing? It says I need to do an
experiment. An experiment
! Who do they think I am? Albert Armstrong?”

“You mean, Albert Einstein?”

Maeve flipped her hair. “
Whatever
. Science and drama girls like me do not mix. Well, most of the time, anyway,” she added, not wanting to sound like a complete doof in front of this dreamy college boy. “I mean, really, what am I supposed to do an experiment on—if my hair looks better curly or straight? Please.”

Matt leaned his head forward and sighed. Maeve wondered if she had gone too far, even for her. But Matt popped back up again and said, “Okay, Maeve, chill time. This is totally doable. First of all, girls can be great at science, and if you don't believe me, then you've got to go to the Sally Ride Science Festival for girls. It's at MIT this weekend and it is going to be seriously interesting.”

Before Maeve even had a chance to say,
More science? I don't think so,…
Matt had taken a brochure out of his bag. “Check it out.”

Maeve expected to see snapshots of a drab gymnasium full of boring-looking posters and homemade volcanoes. But the pictures of the fair were outdoors, right by the Charles River overlooking downtown Boston. There were girls everywhere and huge booths filled with colors.
This doesn't look like a boring science festival to me,
Maeve thought, looking at Matt suspiciously. There was even a close-up that showed a group of girls trying on lip gloss.

“My friend Bailey has been working on it for weeks. It's going to be totally crazy—girls come from all over for this.”

Even though Maeve knew that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was one of the most famous universities in the world, she gave a little wave with her hand, as if that would make the whole science fair thing just disappear. “No offense, Matt…I could understand people coming from far and wide for a movie premiere—like they did with
Titanic
, or like,
Harry Potter
. But honestly…a crowd for a science festival?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Doesn't that seem just a little…nerdy?”

Matt rubbed his temples. Maeve had seen her mother do this thousands of times…usually when Maeve's bedroom reached a messiness level her mom called “the danger zone.”

“Well, from what Bailey told me, this festival is going to be anything
but
nerdy. There are booths and workshops where you can try awesome stuff, like making a bracelet based on your DNA. And a workshop where you can design your own lip gloss flavor.”

Jewelry and makeup? Maeve liked the sound of that. And her own self-designed lip gloss called Pink Satin Princess—she liked the sound of that even better!
But DNA?…
that sounded complicated.

“Plus, there's going to be food there. Hey, Maeve, tell you what. Why don't we go together this Saturday? It'll be a great way for you to see how science can be fun, and maybe even inspire you to come up with an idea for your own experiment for the Abigail Adams Science Fair. Think about it.”

“Huh?” Maeve had totally zoned out after Matt had uttered the words, “together this Saturday.” Could it be true? She had just been asked out by the cutest college boy in the entire world—or at least in Boston, for sure. She looked up to answer with a confident yes, but then became lost in his big, beautiful blue eyes. They got her every time! “Yabba I-I-I mean,
yes
, of course I'll go with you, Matt.”

“Cool. I bet you'll see some science that'll be really interesting to you.”

“I doubt it,” a skeptical Maeve blurted out before she remembered that Matt had asked her to be his date for the festival. She hoped he wouldn't change his mind now.

But Matt didn't even seem to notice her lack of enthusiasm. Instead he started going on and on about alternative energies, global warming, and his friend Bailey's organic fertilizer. Then all of a sudden his eyes widened.

“Hey, I have a great idea. You should ask your friends, you know, the BSG, if they want to come along too. They have to come up with their science projects too, right?”

Maeve felt that sick feeling—the one that meant something wonderful was oh-so-quickly slipping away. If her
friends were there, it just wouldn't be the same! “But you're my tutor,” she sputtered. “You don't want to have to tutor five girls at once, do you?”

Matt laughed. “I don't mind at all. The more the merrier. Besides, it won't be like tutoring so much as us hanging out like friends. You'll get to meet Bailey. And there's going to be a DJ there.”

Phew,
Maeve thought. He was just trying to be nice to her and make her feel more comfortable. That had to be a little bit romantic—at least according to an article she'd read in
Teen Beat
magazine.

“Okay Matt, you have
got
to hear this song,” Maeve told him, trying to keep their conversation on music, far away from science.” It's by Jake Axle and it's called ‘I Am Rubber, You Are Glue' and it's so hot that like, seriously, I'm afraid smoke is going to start coming out of my iPod!” Maeve hopped up to play the song, but she felt a tug on the back of her sweater.

“Hold on one second there, Maeve. We need to make a dent in your math homework.”