I said, “I don’t want to join PTSA! I’m in my own clubs and activities.”
Throwing his hands in the air, he tried a different approach. “Oh wait, so your daddy is about to be mayor, and you’re too good to serve in our organization? Even if your status can help us?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Oh, you’re admitting that who I am can help your cause? So you’re saying you want to use me?”
Winking he said, “Basically!”
“Basically?” I questioned, frustrated he was even standing there saying this to me.
I just rolled my eyes. He stood there. The guy looked so serious, it was eerie, but why would I help him?
Finally feeling my angst, Reese said, “So that’s a no? Final answer?” I figured if I just kept walking, he would understand that was my final answer, but then he followed me and got in my face.
“You could at least give me the respect to answer me.”
“And when I give you the answer you don’t want, that’s not going to be enough for you.”
Gently touching me, he said, “So then give me the answer I want.”
“Urgh, the answer is NO,” I vented, really exasperated with the jerk.
“Then go on with your highfalutin self,” he said loudly to make me look bad. When other people in the hallway laughed, he knew he succeeded.
I wasn’t used to people staring my way. Surely not for anything bad either. Reese called me out, and I didn’t like that.
It was easy to forget the dum-dum because I was headed to my favorite class. Not even smart-aleck Reese Redmond—who was cute but for sure crazy—could stop me from being excited about journalism. Ms. Spears was a phenomenal teacher, and she loved my writing. Although I was a sophomore, she was positioning me to be the editor in chief of our new Marks Magazine. It was really a newspaper, but we wanted to call it something with an M to go with Marks to make it cooler. She was giving out assignments on who was going to write what for the second issue. I went over to her desk.
“I’m turning in the story on the debate. You are going to love it. The next issue, I want to be on the front page. Can you give me the top story?”
“Reserve the drama for the writing, Sloan. You know I wait to see all of the articles coming in. After I read them, I’ll determine what should be on the front page…”
“Ms. Spears, come on now. You know who you want to write for the front page,” I practically pleaded as I nudged her.
“And besides, Sloan, it needs to be a senior.”
I leaned in closer. “Now you know none of the seniors can write like me. You said so yourself. Help me out. Give me the top story, and if you don’t like what I write, then you don’t have to keep me on the front.”
“Okay, okay. There’s a new student organization that’s growing quickly.” Ms. Spears handed me a paper.
I looked at the paper, and my eyes widened in shock at the subject matter. “What? Why do I need to write on a social club around here that has a lot of new members?”
“You want the cover story. The student part of the Parent Teacher Student Association is growing by leaps and bounds. We have more students signed up than parents or teachers. They have a meeting this afternoon. Go and see what you can find,” she encouraged as she nudged me away.
At that moment, I got nauseous and felt like I had made a grave mistake. No way did I want to eat my words. I told Reese I wasn’t interested. But I couldn’t give up the top story. Actually, I was intrigued to see what he was doing to make people sign up. If I thought back, there was a line of people around a table he walked away from before he started walking with me. While his pitch to me was pathetic, maybe there was more than meets the eye. So I accepted the challenge.
The day couldn’t go by fast enough. I was excited when school was over so I could go to room 212. That was where the students who were already in PTSA were meeting with interested students to talk about what the organization was supposed to do. I was familiar with PTSA. All of my life my mom had been a part of it, but I wasn’t expecting the room to be packed with students. I didn’t expect for Reese to be up at the front giving a moving speech like he was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself.
“I have a dream. That teens in high school will come every day ready to seize their own education. You can walk into a building that is a new facility with the best equipment and best teachers, but if you aren’t ready to take charge and make the most of the experience, then you’re losing. You are needed to make Marks High School great. We’re the future. We will craft the world, and this school can help us be all we’re going to be. But we can’t just take, we’re supposed to give. Some of us have more to give than others,” he said. I swore he looked directly at me.
“If we, the students, do more than our share, we can make sure that our parents and our teachers give us all that we need. And sometimes they won’t know what we need until we tell them. The world is changing, technology is changing, and we’ve got to be on the cusp. You can be a football player or be an athlete in any sport and just do sports well, or you can be studious and make sure you take care of your lessons. But that’s why I love PTSA, because whether it’s sports, whether it’s academics, whether it’s social life, if it’s happening in the halls of Marks High School, it affects us all. This organization can help the leaders make sure we stay Mavericks. Not just as a mascot, but in reality. Who’s with me?” he said as he raised his arms.
Everyone cheered. Hands went up of students who wanted to sign up to be a part of his movement. I was impressed as the room lit up with spirit.
CHAPTER TWO
SHACKLES
“So are you going to join PTSA or what?” Reese said to me the next morning when I walked into the school.
I was actually planning to join. Even though I didn’t want to admit it to myself, as hard as I tried to get his speech out of my head, I was bound to it. His words drew me in to his purpose. Willingly, I wanted to be a part of it. I just didn’t like him asking me as if I couldn’t resist his yucky charm or something.
“Yeah, we’re both joining,” my sister Yuri said as she took the form from the table and handed me another one to fill out.
Yuri knew me so well. As Reese came closer to me, my heart started beating faster and I became unresponsive. Yuri understood that the cat had my tongue. I appreciated her for speaking up for me.
She leaned over and said, “Now I see why you’re making me do this. He wants you.”
I jabbed her in the arm. Reese was obnoxious. I needed Yuri to pull me away from him, not push me to him. Shelby, Ansli, and Slade might have been bitten by love bug, but that was not on my radar at all. I had a rigorous class schedule. Except for journalism, French III, and PE, which I hated, I had all AP classes. I needed to get a 4.0 in my core classes. I didn’t have time to get caught up with an intolerable guy like Reese Redmond, who always wanted things his way.
When I finished filling out the form, I handed it to Reese. The way his hand touched mine made me lose my breath. As our eyes locked on each other, I knew he was getting under my skin.
“Reese, who is this taking up all of your attention?” a cute girl sashayed over and interrupted.
“Okay, well I’ll let you get back to your work,” I said, seeing the girl roll her eyes at me.
But before I could walk away, Reese tugged on my hand. “Trevy, I want you to meet Sloan. Sloan, this is Trevy.”
“We have gym together, but she doesn’t notice me,” Trevy said in a snide way.
Shaking my head, I responded, “No, I don’t think we have a class together.”
“Yes, you do. She’s in your gym class,” Yuri said in a breezy tone.
Feeling bad, I mouthed, “Sorry” at Trevy. I probably didn’t know her because the girl seemed like a jerk who wasn’t worth getting to know, not because I thought I was all that.
I always hated that on even-numbered days gym was my first class in the morning. You wake up and get all cute, and then you go to your fir
st class and sweat. So to go to the next class, you have to take a shower to get all cute again. I liked when I had gym in previous years at the end of the day when I was already tired. Then once class was over, I didn’t have to worry about taking a shower at school. I could go home and take a shower there. Some girls don’t get clean after gym, but who wants to walk around school smelling bad all day? Not Sloan Sharp.
Once Reese introduced us, Trevy wasn’t really trying to talk to me. Yuri was pulling on me so we could get to class. To keep it moving, I waved bye to Reese. He quickly waved bye back at me. That was that. Ending things was, for sure, the best; before anything could flare up, it was put out.
“That girl likes him,” Yuri said to me.
“And? Why are you telling me?” I said to my sister as I rolled my eyes.
Tugging on my coat and stopping me from moving, Yuri replied, “Because it looks like she’s not the only one.”
“Whatever,” I uttered as I flicked my hand, dismissing her nonsense theory that held no merit.
Not buying what I was selling her, Yuri joked, “Don’t whatever me. I saw you looking at him like he’s a spoon.”
“Huh?”
“You hear me… looking at him like a spoon you were ready to lick.”
Huffing in denial, I said, “You’re imagining things.”
“Why do you think he had to take your money and your paper from your hands? You were so goo-goo eyed you couldn’t even tell you looked sprung. You’re falling for him. I’m going to be the only Sharp sister alone.”
“Nope, it’s me and you, girl. Forget these boys. And a boy like that would want me jumping up and down for him. ‘Stand on one leg, Sloan. Bark like a dog, Sloan.’”
The two of us laughed as we entered the locker room to change. There were actually three gym classes going on at one time, so while Yuri and I had the same class period, we had different teachers. And all of a sudden, the Trevy chick burst into the locker room and around to our side. She opened up a locker between Yuri’s and mine.
“Hey, girls!”
“Hey,” Yuri said, half wanting to speak.
“See ya later, Sis,” I pushed her away and said right before she was gone.
“That’s your sister, really?” Trevy asked as her nose turned up. “I mean, cuz like, you’re so pretty, she’s so plain.”
“Excuse me!” I said to her.
“I’m just joking! I thought y’all were like play sisters or whatever…”
I didn’t really know this girl, and though anything anyone wanted to know about my family was out there for the world to find, if she didn’t know the details, I wasn’t trying to tell her. Besides, Yuri and I were tighter than blood sisters.
“Alright, well I’ll see ya later,” I said to her.
“No, no, no. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Reese told me he thought I was a little harsh on you earlier. He said I was cold and stuff. I can come across like that, but really I wanted to tell you how much I admire you. I’m not the only one. He thinks you’re so pretty.”
“He does?” I uttered in a surprised yet interested tone.
Trevy stepped back, unsure how to take my response. “Yeah, but I mean what does he know? Every day he’s saying girls are pretty. Not that you aren’t pretty or anything like that, but…”
“Naw, I get what you’re saying,” I replied, understanding now that Reese was trying to play me.
“He’ll tell a girl whatever she wants to hear.”
“I see where you’re going.”
“Exactly!” Trevy said as her unsure face regained confidence. “We could be great friends. You’re not fooled by the bull. Personally, I hate those girls who fall for any lines, thinking that the guy is only after them when he holds their hand an extra minute too long. But I wonder why he was talking about your teeth?”
My eyes squinted. “What do you mean about my teeth? I just got my braces off.”
“Yeah, he said it seemed like it because you had some spots that were like yellow and some that were really white. I don’t know. What does he know?” Trevy said, and her comment got under my skin.
I started walking to the court, and I was so mad. We were playing volleyball, and when it was my turn to serve, I wanted to kill whoever was on the other side of the net. The coach liked my enthusiasm, but afterwards I was even more bummed that I had worked up a sweat letting guy pressure stress me so much.
Adding insult to injury, when I went into my second class, there was Reese. How come I didn’t notice all these people were in my classes before? When he spoke to me, I gave him the cold shoulder. Thankfully we didn’t sit anywhere near each other in class, but when our teacher, Mr. Bonner, gave us a test and started walking around and telling people to change their answers, I looked up and looked right at Reese, who appeared equally annoyed.
Trying to be cool, Mr. Bonner said, “Don’t trip. Some of y’all ain’t studied, and my job is on the line about this AP class. So if I’m helping y’all a little bit too much, and you don’t say nothing, we all will be okay.”
But how could we all be okay? Some students were cheating, and others were honestly studying to earn a great grade. It wasn’t right. Reese and I shook our heads hard and started back on our own work. I could tell he didn’t think it was right either. Something was going to have to be done. But what?
“After you,” Reese said to me as he nearly ran me over walking out of AP World History.
When I went to go left, he went left too. When I turned down the hallway on the right, he turned right too. He was on my heels.
“Are you following me?” I turned around and asked him.
“No, we got the same math class. You’re cute and all, but nobody has time to be putting up with Miss High Maintenance,” he said to me with a bit of an attitude.
I grunted and huffed thinking, “How dare he refer to me that way?” I couldn’t let him get under my skin. I wondered why I hadn’t realized we had a couple of classes together. Where had I been? Or maybe I did remember, it was just he wasn’t standing out to me until now. I do recall a loud-mouthed jerk, but I never looked up to see who it was. Maybe it was him.
If I was honest, now I understood some of his words held meaning. Maybe he wasn’t trying to bait me, but when he looked at me and winked, I thought he was flirting. Both of us were all over the place with each other—as far as emotions go, that is. Neither one of us wanted to show our hand, and after what Trevy told me he had been saying about me, maybe I was making a possible connection up all in my mind. Could he have an attraction to me?
Reese rubbed my shoulders and whispered, “Maybe you need a massage. Let me help you calm down a little bit.”
The touch was for sure relaxing, but I didn’t know how to take it. Where was he coming from? What did he expect me to say to this gesture? I moved away from his grip.
“I need to calm down too. I don’t mean to come across so rude,” he said, as he started walking with me instead of behind me. I didn’t even tell him that was okay. “This school’s got some issues. Like right now. We’re going to math class, it is November, and we still don’t have textbooks.”
“You are so right,” I said to him, irritated at the thought.
“It’s math! How do they expect us to learn without textbooks?” Reese said. “See, Sloan, I’m not a member of PTSA just because I want to beef up my resume so it looks impressive for colleges. There are plenty of clubs I could get in for that. I really do want to make a difference. I also think it’s ridiculous that in AP World History, Mr. Bonner is helping people cheat.”
Smiling from ear to ear because he was right on, I said, “For real. I thought you were feeling that was wrong too.”
“Cool, we both are disgusted. But the question is what are we going to do about it? And why is it alright for students to want that help? We’ve got to demand our own education.”
“Alright, well, let’s ask the teacher where our books are,” I said to him. He was a gentleman and let m
e step into math class first.
He scoffed, “Good luck with that.”
I headed right over to Ms. Peters and asked, “Ms. Peters, do we have our books yet?”
“Nope, they’re not in yet. So I need you guys to go ahead and copy down the new information from the board. Take about five minutes, and I’ll be erasing it to give you more instructions. Then you’ll have to copy the classwork problems off the board too, and we will go over the problems. Also, I’ve got a homework sheet you can pass around when you guys get in groups to copy it.”
Hearing this ridiculous plan, Reese walked over to her desk and complained. “Ms. Peters, this just ain’t right. Some copy slower than others. What if we write down the steps wrong and then it’s erased? Who do we need to talk to about our books?”
Throwing up her hands, she said, “The principal, the school board, the superintendent, anybody but me. It’s not like kids are rushing to carry that big heavy thing around anyway.”
I interjected, “Yeah, but last class I copied down the instructions, and you erased it before I was even finished.”
Reese said, “Right, a similar thing has happened to me. I think I copied a step down wrong because when I went to work on the problem at home, it didn’t make sense. I looked it up online, and there was a whole step missing.”
Ms. Peters tried to reassure us. “I know these aren’t advantageous circumstances for you guys to learn under, but I’m here before school, after school…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get that you are here for extra help, but that still does not change the fact. We should have some textbooks to take home too. Now we got to break into groups and copy down homework problems. This is crazy,” Reese said.
Frustrated, I uttered, “And it’s not right. Because what if he copies them slow or what if I copy a question wrong? You can’t even go back and look at it because it is not in a textbook. Like, we can’t get copies to put in our three-ring binders?”
Ms. Peters said, “No, because the county’s got me short on supplies.”
“This is bull,” Reese said, getting more upset.
#4 Truth and Nothing But Page 2
