The Grump I Despise (When In Waverly 3)

Norah

I’ve been sneaking into Colby’s classroom super early every morning this entire week to move his bookcase of scientific journals over a tiny bit each day. Some may call this idiotic and ridiculous—and they’re more than likely correct. I, however, call it research. I’m curious to know exactly how long it will take him to notice minute changes in his surroundings. Hannah told me about the time she did this exact prank with his dresser when he was in high school, and I have to recreate it. The girl is a master prankster, and Colby is the greatest subject. His reactions never let me down. This is such a harmless prank that I don’t think he’ll explode and cause a scene the way he did last time. At least, I hope he won’t. I cannot lose my job over a moved bookshelf.

I open his classroom door, and I’m shocked to find the lights are already on. The janitor must have forgotten to turn them off last night. I walk into the room, and there he is, standing in front of the very shelf I’ve been slowly shifting to the right. His hands are on his hips, and he’s staring at the shelf as if he’s studying a painting by an old master.

I’m about to back out of the room so he won’t notice me, but I bump into the door, and it slams shut with me still in the room. I freeze in place, wishing I could evaporate into thin air. He spins around, and his brows scrunch up when he sees me standing in his classroom—looking extremely guilty, I might add. Oh, dang. The jig is up.

“Did you need something?” Colby asks in a confused voice. He cocks his head to the side, and it makes my tummy do a weird flip-flop that I don’t want to contemplate the meaning of. My heart is racing. He wants to know why I’m in here, and I obviously can’t tell him the truth. Think, think, think.

“Umm…I just…wanted…” I pause. Nothing is coming to mind.

“You wanted…” he prompts. I’m taking too long to answer. He’s onto me!

“I just wanted to say hello!” I practically yell in his face. Oh gosh, that was way too cheery. Now he’s really going to know something’s up. I’m never this happy to see him. I’m never happy to see him at all. Except, that’s not exactly true anymore, is it? I am happy to see him when he’s not looking miserable. I’ve seen him smile six times now, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him all six of those times.

“You wanted to tell me hello?” he asks in disbelief. He looks around his classroom like there might be someone else in the room he wasn’t aware of. “Do you know where you are? Do you see who you’re talking to?”

“Of course!” I say as I brush my hair off my face. “Why is this such a big deal? I just wanted to say a quick ‘good morning.’ We greet each other all the time.”

“No, we don’t. Have you hit your head?” He places his hands back on his hips. The sleeves of his button-down shirt are rolled up to his elbows, showing off his forearms. And his hands. I didn’t know hands could be drool-worthy, but his are. He could be a hand model for a tool company because those are man hands with all those veins and calluses.

“Norah, why are you really here? Did you just come in here to stare at me again?” he asks. How ridiculous! And how arrogant! But I would expect nothing less from Colby Stuart. The man practically invented vanity with his perfect hair and his outfits that look like they belong in a fashion magazine. As if I would ever deem to stare at him. We’ll just ignore the fact that that’s what I was doing five seconds ago.

“Well, good morning! I’ll see you later!” I blurt out, and I get the heck out of that room. I walk down the hall as fast as my heels will allow. By the time I’m back in my own classroom, I’m panting, and my back’s a little sweaty. I take off my cardigan and fan my face with a folder I had on my desk.

I can’t believe I almost got caught. I’ll have to sneak into the room while he’s eating lunch. That’ll mean that I won’t have time to eat my own lunch, but it’s a small sacrifice I’m willing to make. I should just forget the whole thing. It’s just a silly prank. I’m too old to be doing stuff like this, but it’s always hilarious seeing his reaction.

Okay, the reaction after the singing telegram was a little much, but normally, it’s great. Moving a shelf really is harmless, unless you’re counting my missing sleep every morning from having to get here early every day. And judging from the way he was staring at the shelf when I walked into the room, I’d say he’s a day or two away from realizing what’s going on. I have to see it through, though. He’ll get all scowly and eye-rolly about it. He’ll tell me I’m immature—which is pretty accurate in this case—and annoying. I’ll tell him he’s rude and boring. I’ll be reminded about why I’ve always disliked him so much. Everything will go back to how it has always been. And I desperately need everything to go back to how it has always been. I’m starting to like the man, and I’m not really okay with that.

It has been four days since I almost blew my cover with Colby. I’ve managed to sneak into his classroom and move the shelf a little more to the right all four of those days without getting caught. I’m starting to think he’ll never notice, which would be infuriating. All this work for nothing. I have to take a good portion of the stuff off the shelf to be able to move it and then put it all back on just the way I found it. That’s a lot of work to do every morning for a prank. But it will all be worth it when I see the anger sparking in his eyes and he yells at me, reminding me why he’s insufferable.

I’ve just finished putting his magazines back on the shelf and consulting the picture on my phone to make sure they’re just right when the lights turn on. I freeze with my arms reaching toward the shelf. It’s just the janitor. It’s no big deal, I tell myself to calm my pounding heart.

“Well, well, well,” I hear the deep bravado of Colby’s voice behind me. Okay, so it’s not the janitor. I have been busted. I wasn’t supposed to be here when he realized what was happening. I was supposed to be safely away from the scene of the crime and able to deny everything. “I knew it was you!”

I whirl around to face him, and I’m momentarily shocked by how close he’s standing. At some point, he moved from the doorway to stand directly behind me. His closeness makes my pulse feel all fluttery, and that makes me more annoyed.

If I’m going to play this off, I can’t go in swinging. I have to be calm, cool, and collected. I take a deep breath to gather my thoughts, and I breathe in his scent. It’s too light to be cologne, but it’s musky and manly. It’s the soap I spent far too long sniffing in his shower. I want to bury my face in it. I clear my throat and finally look up at his face. His perfectly combed hair is still a little wet from a shower.

“Admit it, you’ve been moving my shelf!” he says. I blink up at him because he’s sort of smiling. That’s number seven! I don’t know what to say. This is not the reaction I was expecting. He’s supposed to yell or something so I can go back to hating him.

“At first, I was wondering if someone was smuggling my sister in here—it’s a classic Hannah prank, you see—but then you came in here out of the blue a few days ago, and it all made sense. She gave you this idea, though, didn’t she?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say with a shrug of my shoulders. His smile goes from an arrogant smirk to a triumphant grin. He must have heard the shaking in my voice. “When Hannah and I get together, we are certainly not discussing you!”

That’s not true at all. I spend a good fifty percent of my time with her bashing her brother, asking her how the two of them could possibly be related, and listening to stories about young Colby. She seems to find it all highly amusing. But then, she inevitably starts telling me nice stories about him, and that’s when I have to change the subject. I can’t have her polluting my mind with nice thoughts of him.

“Then what, may I ask, were you doing in here all alone in the dark?”

“I was…looking for a magazine!” I say. I pluck a random magazine from the shelf and flip through it for a second without actually seeing anything. “Yep, this one’s perfect!” I tuck it under my arm, clasp my hands in front of me, and give Colby the most innocent smile I can muster. Is he buying any of this? Not a chance, but it’s all I’ve got.

“You, an English teacher, were looking for a scientific journal? How could you even see what you were looking at in the dark?” His eyes are narrowed on me, and he scoots even closer to me, crowding me in against the shelf.

“Why is it so surprising that I would be interested in science?” I choose to ignore the question about the dark because I have no excuse for that.

He leans down so his face is right in front of mine. I can smell a hint of mint on his breath when he says, “I’m onto you, Norah.” I shiver, and goosebumps pop up all over my arms. Good thing I’m wearing a sweater, so he can’t see them.

“You’re paranoid,” I say, and I breeze past him. I feel his fingers brush my arm, and even through my sweater, the touch is searing. The magazine slips from beneath my arm. I stop and turn to face him again.