Taffy Sinclair 004 - Taffy Sinclair and the Romance Machine Disaster Read Online Free PDF Page B

Keith Masterson. " She ' s his girlfriend. "
    Randy looked down at the paper in his hand. It was easy to see that he was still embarrassed, and I knew Taffy Sinclair had a lot to do with it. He started to say something, but then he stopped.
    Come on, I thought. Tell her. Tell everybody that you got my name.
    " Oh, come on, Randy, " pleaded Beth. " Tell us who you got. "
    There was a chorus of " Yeah, " " Come on! " and " Tell us whose name you got. "
    Kids were milling around talking and laughing and a few were whispering " Jana Banana. " My ears were getting so hot that they felt as if they would melt any minute. Why didn ' t Randy just say whose name he got and get it over with?
    The room got quiet as Randy started folding his green and white striped paper. He did it slowly, and you could tell that he was thinking the situation over. He folded the paper into smaller and smaller squares until it was just about the size of a grape.
    Then he looked up and said in a quiet voice, " Miss Wiggins said that nobody has to tell. " With that he stuffed the grape-size paper into the pocket of his jeans.
    " I ' m not going to tell either, " shouted Scott Daly.
    " Me, either, " said Mark Peters. " If Randy won ' t tell, I ' m not going to either. "
    " I got Jana Morgan, " offered Curtis.
    " Well, I ' m not going to tell whose name I got, " said Clarence Marshall. " Girls. Yuk! " He put his hands around his neck and faked throwing up. " Who needs them? "
    Suddenly every boy in the whole class, except Curtis Trowbridge and Randy, was shouting that he wasn ' t going to tell whose name he got in the girl matchup and faking throwing up like Clarence. And every girl in the class was glaring at me as if it were all my fault .

CHAPTER SIX
    At that moment I felt as if a trap door had opened up under my feet and I had dropped into the pits. The dismal pits. I couldn ' t believe that Randy would let me down like that. But the looks on all the girls ' faces had me convinced that I had more than just Randy Kirwan to worry about.
    Melanie dropped to one knee beside my desk. She was frowning and she said in a loud whisper, " Now look what you did, Jana. I may never find out if Scott got my name. " I threw her a poison-dart look. " Don ' t blame me. I had nothing to do with it. "
    " Oh, yeah? You had a date with Randy Saturday, didn ' t you? And you w ere the one Joel and Keith were teasing him about, aren ' t you? "
    " So? "
    " Figure it out, " she said. " If they were teasing him about you after the date, just think how they would tease him if he got your name. "
    I didn ' t answer. If Randy really liked me, it shouldn ' t matter if they teased him. Sixth-grade boys were always teasing somebody about something. It was a dumb conversation anyway. I couldn ' t see how anybody could think it was my fault that Randy Kirwan wouldn ' t tell whose name he got for the girl matchup. And I certainly didn ' t have anything to do with all the other boys deciding not to tell either. But that didn ' t stop the girls from being mad at me.
    Unfortunately, that was only part of my troubles. I didn ' t know it at first, but this whole computer matchup was going to turn into a disaster. It took Wiggins a while to restore order. In the meantime, I got some more news. None of it good.
    1. Not only had Taffy Sinclair gotten Randy ' s name, but nine out of fourteen girls in the sixth grade got him as their boy matchup, including Beth Barry. It was bad enough that he was so popular that practically everybody had a crush on him, but my best friend in the world! I couldn ' t believe it. She had always acted as if she didn ' t know that boys were on the face of the earth, and all along she had a secret crush on Randy.
    2. Melanie and Taffy Sinclair got each other ' s names. Melanie pretended to be mad, but I saw her watching Taffy out of the corner of her eye. Now that she was getting thin and a lot prettier, was she going to turn into someone stuck-up and snotty like Taffy