Things Are Gonna Get Ugly by Hillary Homzie Page A

squeeze my knuckles, trying not to let out a stress-busting primal wail.
    Dribble Speaks
    Mr. Dribble leans against the wall in the hallway and fishes a pickle out of his jar. “You’re right as rain, Taffeta Smith.”
    â€œRight about what?”
    He crunches into the pickle and juice drips down his chin. “I did it. Not Olivia. I hated hearing you give credit to the wrong person.”
    For a moment, I feel like I’m in freeze-frame mode but then I feel the whoosh of air flooding back into my lungs, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the chatter in the classroom. He did this? Mr. Dribble, who talks like a game show host, who enjoys the color purple, who loves his mustache just a little bit too much?
    My original hunch was right. I’m a quasi genius.
    No, this is crazy. I have become crazy. Yet, deep down I know all of this is somehow REAL.
    â€œAre you kidding me?” I ask, hoping that he will say yes. That it’s all an elaborate hoax. That I’ve been punked.
    â€œI’m an educator, Miss Smith. And right now I’m trying to educate you about the truth. I did it.”
    Can I really be having this conversation? Yes, apparently, I can. Mr. Dribble is smiling at me and pulling on the ends of his mustache.
    Right now I want to pull the mustache off his face. “Change me back. Make me into me .”
    He winces like he’s got food stuck in a molar. “Sure wish I could. Boy, do I.”
    â€œWhat do you mean you wish you could? Do your thing!”
    â€œIt’s not in my control, Miss Taffeta. After all, you’re the one who said you wanted a fresh start.”
    â€œI didn’t mean change me into Freakzilla. I meant change what I did.”
    â€œDid?” Mr. Dribble asks.
    â€œYou know,” I say under my breath. “My cheating. Not as me. As someone else. Oh, you know what I mean.”
    Mr. Dribble licks his yellow teeth and his orange mustache woobles. “Like I said, it’s all up to you.”
    â€œMe? Something I need to do?” He’s crunching on the pickle extra loudly and I want to tell him to close his mouth but I’m afraid he’ll turn me into a rodent or something.
    â€œHave you mistreated anybody lately?” he asks, screwing the lid on to the pickle jar extra tightly.
    I think for a second. What’s he talking about? He is giving me a clue. Lucky me.
    And I think some more. Me, mistreat someone?
    Slowly, though, a thought rolls in. “Winslow, I guess, but—”
    â€œBut nothing.” He sets the pickle jar down onthe floor. “I just asked you a simple question.”
    Did he mean did I do something bad and now I need to do something nice to make it up? Was that it? “So I need to do something about it?” As I shake my head, frizzy strands of hair fly into my eyes. That’s when it hits me—I’m really trapped in something. That my hair, as much as I brush it, isn’t going to smooth down into controllable waves. It springs, it frizzes, it geeks hard. I can’t do a makeover on myself to recreate Taffeta. I’m not going to be able to simply plunk contacts into my eyes and buy a whole new wardrobe. Somehow, I got into this mess magically and I’ve got to get out of this mess magically.
    â€œYou need to rectify,” says Dribble.
    â€œRectify?”
    â€œMmm. Dancing with Winslow at Winterfest would be sweet, don’t ya think?” He grins at me, and I see this huge gap in the middle of his front teeth.
    â€œThat’s it? We don’t have to officially go there together? Just show up independently and then I ask him to dance. He says yes, we dance, and then I’m me again?”
    He scratches his chin. “Sounds reasonable.”
    â€œI thought you were going to say I had to learnsomething or do something important. This is going to be SO easy.” I don’t even have to go with him to the dance, I think. Just one dance. How hard